3f)0 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



Sandusky, Ohio, by West & Smith, and in a few years the system became general 

 and many hundred tons of fish formerly lost to the trade were marketed fresh during 

 the winter months, when fishing becomes impossible or impracticable. 



I am dealing with this question from a commercial standpoint, because from nt 

 other has the subject material interest to any very considerable portion of our people. 

 The fishing industry is of vital interest to the citizen generally for two reasons only : 

 It furnishes a source of employment for a large amount of labor and capital, and it 

 produces a large and valuable food product, at low prices to the general public, 

 through the channels of trade the outgrowth of this great industry. 



From the statistics furnished by the U. S. Fish Commission we find that 178,41;. 

 persons are annually employed in fishing and fisheries in this country, with a capital 

 investment of $55,099,278, indicating that nearly one-sixtieth of our population are 

 engaged or directly interested in this business as a meaus of livelihood. It is no 

 wonder, then, that this subject is attracting such widespread interest among the best 

 thinkers of our land, and that State and National Governments are giving to it th 

 serious and watchful attention its importance so clearly merits. 



Until recent years the fish supply of Lake Erie was so great that the question of 

 its becoming exhausted was thought of only as a possibility, and but little was done 

 looking towards maintaining the supply. The whitefish that once swarmed in its 

 waters in vast numbers, being most sought for by reason of their greater value, was the 

 first of the fishes to show material decrease; the pike, the pickerel, and the bass also 

 gradually decreased, while other fishes, such as the herring and blue pike seemed to 

 increase, probably owing to the fact that they were very little sought for because of 

 the low price paid fishermen for them. 



About 1869 the first herring were frozen for winter trade. Twenty tons of these 

 fish were frozen that year by Ferdinand Geisdorf, of Sandusky, Ohio, and marketed in 

 Pittsburg, Pa., where they met with such favor by the trade that all the firms operat- 

 ing in fish in Sandusky froze quite a quantity of herring the following season; so from 

 the year 1870 may fairly be dated the time when herring became one of the principal, 

 if not the principal, fish of commerce from the fisheries of Lake Erie. Hitherto it hac '. 

 been classed among the cheap and undesirable fish taken by our fishermen, and the 

 greater part of the catch saved to the trade was marketed as a salted product. The 

 herring rapidly advanced in favor, and the fishermen turned their attention more 

 particularly to its capture. Hitherto it had only been taken in pound nets, almost the 

 exclusive method of fishing used in the western half of Lake Erie from 1850 to 1888, 

 a period of thirty-eight years. 



Fishing with gill net was confined to the large-mesh nets used in catching white- 

 fish and trout, as herring was too cheap a fish to pay gill-net fishermen to catch, and 

 such nets were mainly operated in the deep water of the east end of the lake. They 

 continued to operate these large-mesh gill nets until the whitefish and trout were 

 practically destroyed. In the meantime the herring, blue pike, and sauger actually 

 increased in numbers in the waters of the lake. Notwithstanding pound-net fishing 

 kept increasing from year to year, these fish continued to increase until the gill-net 

 fishermen commenced fishing their small-mesh nets in the western part of Lake Erie, 

 at a time when these fish are on the road to their spawning-grounds, which mainly 

 lie in the western part of the lake. 



