A stranger to our parts might think that all he had to do was to row out in a little boat a few hundred yards, and begin to fish.
If he did that, the chances are that he would not catch anything, while a boat three or four lengths away might be hauling in fish quite fast.
The reason is simple.

Sea fish frequent certain places after the fashion of fresh-water fish, which are found, according to their sorts, on muddy bottoms; half-way down in clear deeps; among piles; in gravelly swims; at the tails of weeds; or under the boughs of trees close in to the side of river or lake.
So with the sea fish.

If we wanted to catch bass, we threw out in places where the tide ran fast; if we were trying for pollack, it was along close by the stones of the rocky shore; if for conger, in deep dark holes; and if for flat-fish, right out in deep water, where the bottom was all soft oozy sand.
Upon this occasion we had decided for the latter, and with Bigley giving a word now and then to direct us, as he watched certain points on the shore, we rowed away for quite half a mile, but keeping straight out from the Gap.
"Now we're just over the Ringlets," cried Bigley suddenly.
"Heave over the anchor then!" I shouted.
"No, go on a bit farther, about fifty yards, and then we shall be on the muddy sand.

I know." We boys pulled, and then all at once Bigley shouted "In oars!" and we ceased rowing as the grapnel went over the side with a splash, and the cord ran across the gunwale, grating and _scrorting_ as Bob called it, till the little anchor reached the bottom, and the drifting of the boat was checked.
"I say, isn't it deep ?" I said.
"Just about nine fathoms," said Bigley.

"You'll have plenty of hauling to do." "I say, look!" I cried, as I happened to look shoreward, "you can see right up the Gap nearly to the mine." "Isn't the sea smooth ?" said Bob.