BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 229 



or tarred cotton, in weiglit about 4 to C pounds to the 300 fathoms of 

 line. They are about 2 feet in length, and are fastened to the ground- 

 line at intervals of 3^ feet. The manner of fastening the gangings to 

 the ground -line is different from that upon the halibut trawls.* The 

 hooks are numbers 15 or IG, center draught, and eyed.t The hooks are 

 fastened to the gangings in the same manner as on the cod trawls. The 

 haddock trawls are coiled in tubs, similar to those employed in the 

 Georges fishery. A tlour barrel, sawed off above the lower quarter 

 hoops, is used for a tub. Each tub of haddock trawl contains 500 hooks, 

 or about 292 fathoms of ground-line. Each dory is provided with six 

 or eight tubs of trawl, and two to eight of these tubs of line are set at 

 once, as the case may require. Sometimes only two or three tubs are 

 set at a time, and several sets are frequently made in a day when the 

 weather is suitable. 



One of the anchors is similar fo those used upon the cod trawls, while 

 the second anchor is often of the killick pattern. The buoy-line is the 

 same as in the cod or halibut trawl, and its length is 15 to 30 fathoms 

 more than the depth of water in which it is used. The buoys are simi- 

 lar to those used in cod-trawling. Each buoy at the end of the trawl 

 has a black-ball upon it, and a middle buoy, without a staff or black- 

 ball, is also used I when the whole length of the trawl is set.§ Instead 

 of the regulation keg buoy, a "kit" is sometimes used by the haddock 

 trawlers. 



Bait. — When it can be obtained, the principal bait used by the haddock- 

 catchers is menhaden slivers, salted. This is considered the best bait, 

 and it is said that haddock will often bite at this when nothing else will 

 tempt them. The trawl-hooks, when this bait is used, may be baited 

 days, or even weeks, in advance, while the vessel is waiting for a chance 

 to set. When fresh bait is used, the trawis can be baited only a short 

 time before, indeed, only a few hours before they are to be set. 



Fresh herring is also used for bait, though to a comiiaratlvely limited 

 extent, until within the past two or three years, when they have been the 

 principal bait relied upon, as a suflficierit quantity of menhaden could 

 not be procured. 



Capt. S. J. Martin, of Gloucester, writes: "Five or six years ago 

 pogie slivers were exclusively used for bait by haddock fishermen, but 

 for the past two winters none of these could be obtained, and mackerel 

 and herring have been the i)rincipal bait. The first vessels that started 



* They are fastened either by tucking and hitching or by a simple hitch around 

 the ground-line. 



t The Irish li8hern:en of Boston sometimes use a galvanized hook of the same size 

 ■without an eye. 



t This is to aid the fishermen in recovering their trawls in case they are parted at 

 either end. 



$ When the trawls are set in shallow water where there is a rocky bottom three or 

 four middle buoys are sometimes used. 



