This holds the line secure while the backward and forward pulls are being made, and affords a good hold for the hook-impaling "jerk" when a strike is felt.

While the "angler" pulls on his line the boatman slowly rows along, and holding his line on the fingers of his "starboard" hand, he secures the proper motion as he rows.
Then, pulling over the ledges or ridges between shallow and deeper, or deeper and deep water, he exercises all his skill and acquired knowledge and experience to enable his "fare" to make a good catch.
As soon as a strike is felt and duly hooked he sees that the line is drawn in steadily so as not to afford the fish a chance to rid itself of the hook, and, as soon as it appears, he drops his oar, seizes the net, and lands the catch to the great delight of his less-experienced fare.
Many are the tales that a privileged listener may hear around the fisherman's night-haunts, telling of the antics of their many and various fares, when a strike has been made.

Some become so excited that they tangle up their lines, and one boatman assures me that, on one occasion a lady was so "rattled" that she finally wrapped her line in such a fashion around both elbows that she sat helpless and he had to come to her rescue and release her.
On another occasion a pair of "newly-weds" went out angling.
When "hubby" caught a fish, the pair celebrated the catch by enthusiastically kissing, totally regardless of the surprise or envy that might be excited in the bosom of the poor boatman, and when "wifie" caught a fish the same procedure was repeated.

"Of course," said the boatman, in telling me the story, "that pair caught more fish than any one I had had for a month, simply to taunt me with their carryings on." In the height of the season the guests become the most enthusiastic fishermen of all.

They take a growing pride in their increasing scores and the fishing then resolves itself into an earnest, almost deadly, tournament in which each determines to outscore the others.