The mackerel, however, is not caught solely in nets, but readily takes that oldest of man’s predatory instruments, the hook.  To attract them to the side of the vessel, a mixture of clams and little fish called “porgies,” ground together in a mill, is thrown into the sea, which, sinking to the depths at which the fish commonly lie, attract them to the surface and among the enticing hooks.  Every fisherman handles two lines, and when the fishing is good he is kept busy hauling in and striking off the fish until his arms ache, and the tough skin on his hands is nearly chafed through.  Sometimes the hooks are baited with bits of clam or porgy, though usually the mackerel, when biting at all, will snap with avidity at a naked hook, if tinned so as to shine in the water.  Mr. Nordhoff, whose reminiscences of life on a fishing boat I have already quoted, describes this method of fishing and its results graphically: 

“At midnight, when I am called up out of my warm bed to stand an hour’s watch, I find the vessel pitching uneasily, and hear the breeze blowing fretfully through the naked rigging.  Going on deck, I perceive that both wind and sea have ‘got up’ since we retired to rest.  The sky looks lowering, and the clouds are evidently surcharged with rain.  In fine the weather, as my predecessor on watch informs me, bears every sign of an excellent fishday on the morrow.  I accordingly grind some bait, sharpen up my hooks once more, see my lines clear, and my heaviest jigs (the technical term for hooks with pewter on them) on the rail ready for use, and at one o’clock return to my comfortable bunk.  I am soon again asleep, and dreaming of hearing fire-bells ringing, and seeing men rush to the fire, and just as I see ‘the machine’ round the corner of the street, am startled out of my propriety, my dream, sleep, and all by the loud cry of ‘Fish!’

“I start up desperately in my narrow bunk, bringing my cranium in violent contact with a beam overhead, which has the effect of knocking me flat down in my berth again.  After recovering as much consciousness as is necessary to appreciate my position, I roll out of bed, jerk savagely at my boots, and snatching up my cap and pea-jacket, make a rush at the companion-way, up which I manage to fall in my haste, and then spring into the hold for a strike-barrel.

“And now the mainsail is up, the jib down, and the captain is throwing bait.  It is not yet quite light, but we hear other mainsails going up all round us.  A cool drizzle makes the morning unmistakably uncomfortable, and we stand around half asleep, with our sore hands in our pockets, wishing we were at home.  The skipper, however, is holding his lines over the rail with an air which clearly intimates that the slightest kind of a nibble will be quite sufficient this morning to seal the doom of a mackerel.

“‘There, by Jove!’ the captain hauls back—­’there, I told you so!  Skipper’s got him—­no—­aha, captain, you haul back too savagely!’