The cunner is here recorded for the urchin with the cane pole.
For instance, the cunner and sheepshead are expert bait stealers.
It may be that the first hook was taken by some other fish, but the cunner got in ahead on the bait.
Some men stick an awl through a cunner's head, or catch it fast in a stout iron hook, to hold it while skinning.
For the first bait of the first fisherman that ever threw hook into the North Atlantic was taken by a cunner.
There is none of the bait-stealing tomfoolery of the cunner, none of the dancing hilarity of the pollock.
A small sheepshead is a more adroit stealer of bait than the cunner.
