344 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



bait for codfishing is great. It is certaiuly not an exaggeration to estimate the actual 

 cost of bait at one-fourth of the value of the cod taken. Besides this, much time is 

 lost every year during the fishing season, owing to the want of fresh bait, which is 

 not always easily procured and which is essential to good fishing. Hence anything 

 that should economize the cost of bait and save time would be both desirable and 

 important. Norway, the most important cod-producing country of Europe, and our 

 chief rival in the cod markets of the world, has in recent years greatly improved her 

 modes of fishing, her fishermen using gill nets to a large extent, with great success. 



The cod fishery is carried on in Canada, either in vessels of a tonnage from 60 to 

 100 tons on the great banks or in open boats at a few miles from the shore. Nova 

 Scotia and New Brunswick seem to have the monopoly of the fishing in large decked 

 vessels, and I am happy to say that naval architecture has improved very much, 

 during the last ten years, in these two provinces. This improvement in the dimen- 

 sions and lines of their vessels has enabled their fishermen to increase their annual 

 catch of fish considerably. 



Vessels employed in codfishing are manned by from 10 to 13 men, according to 

 tonnage. Generally the owner of the schooner, who also supplies the men with the 

 necessary fishing tackle, receives half the catch, the fishermen retaining the other 

 half. When the vessels have reached the fishing-grounds they are anchored, by hemp 

 or manila cables, in from 15 to 50 fathoms of water. Bait is obtained by spreading 

 nets in the sea at some distance from the vessel, and the fishing is then begun, with 

 bultows or long lines, and carried on by night as well as by day, in spite of wind and 

 storm, until the hold of thevessefis filled up with fish all split and salted. Then the 

 vessel returns to port, the cod is landed, washed, dried, and prepared for exportation. 



Fishing in vessels is more expensive, but also more remunerative, than fishing with 

 open boats along the shore. Cod taken on the banks are larger and finer in quality 

 than those fish taken along the coasts. An average of 30 bank cods, when dried, makes 

 a quintal, and it brings a higher price than the shore fish. 



In the province of Quebec and in Prince Edward Island the cod fishery is still 

 almost universally carried on in open boats, in the neighborhood of the coves and bays 

 where the fishermen reside. In some parts of the province of Quebec, however, fish- 

 ermen venture with their open boats to 20 and 30 miles from shore. These boats are 

 built by the fishermen themselves. They vary in dimensions from 20 to 40 feet keel, 

 with a breadth of beam from 6 to 10 feet, according to the use they are intended for. 

 They are very sheer built, and their clinker work is usually of cedar. Pointed at both 

 ends, their rigging consists generally of two sprits or gaff sails, some of these intended 

 to fish on the banks being schooner-rigged. They are comparatively light, in order 

 to be easily hauled up on the beach in stormy weather ; are good sailers and behave 

 wonderfully well at sea. Yet, although good sea boats and splendid sailers, manned 

 by fishermen whose intrepidity and skillful ness are well known, these boats are too 

 small to enable our fishermen to carry on codfishing upon as large a scale as it might 

 be done. The fishermen of Quebec and Prince Edward Island, with their small boats, 

 being too often obliged to run before the storm and leave the fishing-grounds when 

 they are sure of a good catch, in order to save themselves from being caught away 

 from land by heavy gales, lose every year much precious time during which the fisher- 

 men of Nova Scotia and of New Brunswick reap an abundant harvest. The reports 

 on the fisheries of the last few years show a noticeable diminution in the quantity 



