Jersey Our Island - Travelling Blind Part 2

Published in 1950, this book is an interesting snapshot of the Island and its customs as it was in the immediate post-war period, and not without humour. Most guide books of the time give the tourist information, or give the impressions of an outsider to the Island, but this is in "inside view", which is rarer.

Jersey Our Island - Travelling Blind Part 2
by Sidney Bisson

There are still fishermen at La Rocque, which was once a real fishing village, though most of the fish sold in Jersey is now imported. For the amateur fisherman it is a paradise, provided he does not set out with the preconceived idea that fishing is a matter of dangling a hook in the water with the aid of a rod and line.

`Low water fishing,' which is the practice here, is something different, and far more exciting.

Provided you have the right implements you are not bound to stick to the same variety of fish every time you go. For the more placid there are creeks and pools where at the right time of the year (late summer is best) a shrimping net pushed gently under the floating seaweed will bring at each push a handful of the fattest prawns you ever saw. When that palls you can vary the procedure by stalking individual prawns, usually the largest,which have escaped your gentle probings by darting between

your legs.

There's just one snag. A prawn looks much bigger in the water than when you have got hold out safely by its whiskers. So you may have a few disappointments before you have learnt how much to allow for magnification.

Winkling appeals particularly to children. You can see your prey and it can't run away. All you have to do is to pick it up and pop it in a bag. It is no sport for a grown-up, unless you happen to be particularly fond of winkles, in which case I suppose collecting them, however easily, will give you a certain amount of pleasure. The same applies to limpeting, except that you need a tool like a chisel to prise them from the rocks.

Fishing for crabs is a trifle more advanced, although that too needs nothing more than a bag or basket to put them in. But you learn with experience that a stone of a certain shape or lying in a certain way is more likely to harbour a crab than the thousands of other stones around you. Once you have got the hang of it, it grows on you, like backing horses. After all, every time you turn over a stone you are backing yourself to ford a crab under it.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. And if you should be unfortunate and back a whole string of losers, your stake has only amounted to a few foot-pounds of energy. The more sophisticated crabber carries an iron hook with which to probe under stones that are too heavy to be lifted. Others hunt in pairs, one prising up the bigger stones, the other feeling with his hand underneath. I do not recommend this to beginners. A six-inch crab has the wherewithal to make its presence rather too painfully felt. A crab in the bag is worth two on the forgers.

It is an unwritten law of crab hunting that you should carefully replace every stone you turn, so that the crabs coming in on the next tide will have somewhere to lay their heads. Believing that every incoming tide would roll all the stones about to fresh positions, I used to think it didn't matter very much; but my theory has been disproved, so it is better to stick to the rules.

In the back of every crab catcher's mind lurks the dream that some day he will turn over a very big stone and find A LOBSTER! It is a dream that rarely comes true for the lobster is a wise animal (contrary to popular belief lobsters are animals, not fish) and eschews stones that are likely to be turned over by crab hunters. He prefers deep dark crevices in the rocks, where he knows that only a fool will dare to insert his hand. Of course the easiest way of catching lobsters is to set lobster-pots and come back the next day to collect your catch. But that is no more a sport than catching rabbits in a snare or mice in a mouse-trap.

Your real sportsman tracks the lobster to his lair and drags him forth with an armoury of iron hooks of different shapes and sizes. It is a sport that calls for a tremendous amount of patience and perseverance, for it is easier to locate a lobster than to coax him out of his crevice alive. To most low water fishermen, especially those who like hunting alone, this is the highlight of adventure. More bloodthirsty fishermen avoid the rocky part of the beach and follow the tide down well over a mile until it discloses broad stretches of silvery sand.

Here meek middle-aged men, who have never lifted a forger against anyone in anger, get a kick out of paddling up to their knees with uplifted spear, earnestly watching the sand for the tell-tale wriggle that betokens life below. Then of a sudden the spear comes down, and if the aim has been good, up again with a flapping plaice transfixed.

Here too come the sand-eelers, though no longer in their hundreds as of old, when the sand-eeling party was an annual event in the life of every farmer. All the family came, with relatives, neighbours, and friends, driving down to La Rocque in their dog-carts or the old box-shaped Jersey vans. The old people brought their knitting and sat on the rocks near the slipway, telling each other stories of the phenomenal catches they had once been young enough to make. For sand-eeling is no dotard's sport.

Only the strong in wind and limb can face the mile and a half scramble over rock and shingle without slipping on the seaweed or falling into one of the gullies that the receding tide has left. And there is no sitting and resting on the way back. If you don't hurry you will find that the tide has stolen a march on you and the gully that you splashed across cheerfully on your way down is now filled with water up to your waist and is getting deeper every minute.

So only the stalwarts go down to the water's edge, armed with rakes or sickle-like hooks according to their school of thought. Those who favour rakes have the advantage of remaining upright, but the pressure of the handle on your shoulder is likely to make it sore for a few days unless you are blessed with the toughest of skins. If you would rather have backache you use a hook.

In either case the procedure is simple. The sand-eels always congregate more or less in the same spots. The hooksman makes a few trial slashes with his hook. If there is no sign of fish he moves on until he comes to a productive patch. Then he settles down to a routine of scratching in the sand with the hook and transferring the slippery silvery sand-eels to his basket with his free hand.

Those who use rakes usually work knee deep in the sea and carry long narrow boxes instead of baskets. First the box is adjusted so that it hangs at waist level in front of the body. Then you drive the sharp-pointed prongs of the rake into the sand, rest the handle on your shoulder, press on it firmly with both hands, and solemnly walk backwards a- dozen paces. By this time, if you are lucky, several unfortunate sand-eels will have got impaled on the prongs of your rake, which you now pull out of the water and hold over the long box. Unless they are mortally wounded, the sand-eels will wriggle themselves into it without much assistance from you.

To the uninitiated, all this sounds rather like hard unskilled labour. And for what result? To catch a hundred or so little fishes averaging eight or nine inches in length and as fat as your middle finger? Delicious as they are, fried in Jersey butter (before rationing days !), I don't think the thought of africot of sand-eels is the mainspring that drives people down to the sea to catch them. Nor is it entirely the picnic spirit, for it might have become traditional to make up festive parties for prawning, or crabbing, or limpeting. But it didn't. For centuries it has been the custom forJerseymen to make up parties to go sand-eeling, either by day or by night. For of course the full moon coincides with the

lowest tides.

It used to be so much a part of public life that laws were passed about it. In 1589, for example, it was decreed that `in order to safeguard the morals of women and girls they are forbidden to take part in sand-eeling at night except when accompanied by their husbands, fathers, or masters.'

Nocturnal sand-eeling expeditions were apparently too often an excuse for drunken orgies, quantities of liquor being taken to drink on the way. But the daylight parties were real family affairs, with a picnic feast of cider, cold pork, and baked apple dumplings when the catch had been safely brought back to land. It is a pity that they are dying out.