"It's fun fishing on a day like this, but it's rather tough in a gale of wind, with your eyes half blinded by rain, and the waves breaking into your boat. Yes, we catch just as many then, perhaps more, for there are fewer men out, and I suppose the weather is always about the same, except as to temperature, down where the shad are. The fish don't mind wet weather; neither must we if we make a business of catching them." "Do you always throw out your net from the west shore toward the east?" Webb asked. "No, we usually pay out against the wind. With the wind the boat is apt to go too fast. The great point is to keep the net straight and not all tangled and wobbled up. Passing boats bother us, too. Sometimes a float will catch on a paddle-wheel, and like enough half of the net will be torn away. A pilot with any human feeling will usually steer one side, and give a fellow a chance, and we can often bribe the skipper of sailing-craft by holding up a shad and throwing it aboard as he tacks around us. As a rule, however, boats of all kinds pass over a net without doing any harm. Occasionally a net breaks from the floats and drags on the bottom. This is covered with cinders thrown out by steamers, and they play the mischief." "Do the fish swim against the tide?" "Usually, but they come in on both sides." "Mr. Marks, how can you catch fish in a net that is straight up and down?" Amy asked. "You'll soon see, but I'll explain. The meshes of the net will stretch five inches. A shad swims into one of these and then, like many others that go into things, finds he can't back out, for his gills catch on the sides of the mesh and there he hangs. Occasionally a shad will just tangle himself up and so be caught, and sometimes we take a large striped bass in this way." In answer to a question of Burt's he continued: "I just let my net float with the tide as you see, giving it a pull from one end or the other now and then to keep it as straight and as near at right angles with the river as possible. When the tide stops running out and turns a little we begin at one end of the net and pull it up, taking out the fish, at the same time laying it carefully in folds on a platform in the stern-sheets, so as to prevent any tangles. If the net comes up clear and free, I may throw it in again and float back with the tide. So far from being able to depend on this, we often have to go ashore where there is a smooth beach before our drift is over and disentangle our net. There, now, I'm through, with paying out. Haven't you noticed the floats bobbing here and there?" "We've been too busy listening and watching you," said Leonard. "Well, now, watch the floats. If you see one bob under and wobble, a shad has struck the net near it, and I can go and take him out. In smooth water it's like fishing with one of your little cork bobblers there on your lines. I'll give the shad to the first one that sees a float bob under."