Miscellaneous
(Page 11 of 14)

HOW TO SKIN FISH.

When you camp by the seaside, you will catch cunners and other fish that need skinning. Let no one persuade you to slash the back fins out with a single stroke, as you would whittle a stick; but take a sharp knife, cut on both sides of the fin, and then pull out the whole of it from head to tail, and thus save the trouble that a hundred little bones will make if left in. After cutting the skin on the under side from head to tail, and taking out the entrails and small fins, start the skin where the head joins the body, and pull it off one side at a time. Some men stick an awl through a cunner's head, or catch it fast in a stout iron hook, to hold it while skinning.

Cunners and lobsters are sometimes caught off bold rocks in a net. You can make one easily out of a hogshead-hoop, and twine stretched across so as to make a three-inch mesh.[25] Tie a lot of bait securely in the middle, sink it for a few minutes, and draw up rapidly. The rush of water through the net prevents the fish from escaping.

 

[25] The mesh of a net is measured by pulling it diagonally as far as possible, and finding the distance from knot to knot; consequently a three-inch mesh will open so as to make a square of about an inch and a half.