It was wonderful fishing.

Harvey could see the glimmering cod below, swimming slowly in droves, biting as steadily as they swam.

Bank law strictly forbids more than one hook on one line when the dories are on the Virgin or the Eastern Shoals; but so close lay the boats that even single hooks snarled, and Harvey found himself in hot argument with a gentle, hairy Newfoundlander on one side and a howling Portuguese on the other.
Worse than any tangle of fishing-lines was the confusion of the dory-rodings below water.

Each man had anchored where it seemed good to him, drifting and rowing round his fixed point.

As the fish struck on less quickly, each man wanted to haul up and get to better ground; but every third man found himself intimately connected with some four or five neighbours.