Shark Fishing
- In the first edition of this work, the late Sir H. W. Gore-Booth gave an account of shooting the Basking Shark (Selache) of the Irish coast with a harpoon-gun. This is admirable sport for yachtsmen, but it is proposed in the following article rather to consider the sporting aspects of the capture of these fishes, accidental or otherwise, with rod and line. It cannot be pretended that they give the same sport, weight for weight, as the majority of other sea fish, since all their habits are opposed to the angler's requirements in a game fish. At the same time, the larger species of tropical seas afford excitement by reason of their great size and weight, and some of the smaller kinds of our own coasts, notably the Tope (Galeus), which is caught up to 50 lb. on the East Coast, at Filey and Herne Bay among other resorts, and the Blue Shark (Carcharias) and Porbeagle (Lamna) of the Devon and Cornwall coasts (they are not peculiar to the south-western counties, but are specially attracted thither by the pilchards), are sufficiently lively on the rod to give the fisherman all the trouble he can wish in bringing them to the gaff. as