26 BOWDOIN BOYS IN LABRADOR. 



At Webeck Harbor, which we came to pronounce " Wayback," 

 probably because it seemed such a long way back to anything 

 worthy of human interest, we saw the business of catching cod 

 at its best. They had just " struck a spurt," the fishermen said, 

 and day after day simply went to their traps, filled their boats 

 and bags, took the catch home, where the boys and " ship girls " 

 took charge of it, and returned to the traps to repeat the process. 

 An idea of the amount of fish taken may be given by the figures 

 of the catch of five men from one schooner, who took one thou- 

 sand quintals of codfish in thirteen days. We obtained a better 

 idea of the vast catch by the experience of one of our parties 

 who spent part of a day at the traps, as the arrangement of nets 

 along the shore is called, into which the cod swim and out of 

 which they are too foolish to go. They are on much the same 

 plan as salmon weirs, only larger, opening both ways, and being 

 placed usually in over ten fathoms of water and kept in place by 

 anchors, shore lines, and floats and sinkers. Once down they 

 are usually kept in place a whole season. The party were in a 

 boat, inside the line of floats, so interested in watching the fish- 

 ermen making the " haul," as the process of overhauling the net 

 and passing it under the boat is called, by which the fish are 

 crowded up into one corner where they can be scooped out by 

 the dozen, that they did not notice that the enormous catch was 

 being brought to the surface directly under them till their own 

 boat began to rise out of the water, actually being grounded on 

 the immense shoal of codfish. 



It was a strange sensation and makes a strange story. All 

 the time that we were storm-stayed at Webeck the " spurt " con- 

 tinued, and the trap owners were tired but jubilant. The " hand- 

 lining " crews were correspondingly depressed, for, though so 

 plenty, not a cod would bite a hook. It is this reason, that is, 

 because an abundance of food brings the cod to the shores in 

 great numbers and at the same time prevents them from being 

 hungry, that led to the abandonment of trawling and the univer- 

 sal adoption of the trap method. We did not see a single trawl 

 on the coast, and it is doubtful if there was one there in use. 



