I So AMERICAN FISHES. 



seventeenth and eighteenth centuries groups of boats might have been 

 seen, as at the present day, chistered together in the harbors, or near the 

 outer shores, their crews busily engaged in hauling in the tinkers, and, 

 occasionally, larger mackerel, which during the summer season found their 

 way into those protected waters. It is not known when the custom of 

 drailing for mackerel was first introduced, but it was, beyond question, the 

 common method at the close of the last and the beginning of the present 

 century, as it is in the present day in England, under such names as 

 "whiffing," "railing," "drailing" or "plummeting." 



Captain Atwood writes: "In my boyhood, when I caught my first 

 mackerel, nobody thought of jigging them. We then took them in the 

 same way as bluefish are caught. My first experience in mackerel fishing 

 took ]:)lace when I was a little boy, about 1815. I went out with two old 

 men. One of them fished in the stern of the boat, and when it did not 

 sail fast enough the other and myself — I was eight years old at the 

 time — had to row, in order, by the more rapid motion of the boat, to 

 induce the fish to bite. They would not bite unless the line was towed. 

 Two great long poles were run out, one just forward, in such a manner 

 that our vessel had the appearance of a long-armed spider. The poles 

 were straight, and one line was fastened at one part, and another line on 

 the end of the pole, in order to have them separated." 



" The present mode of catching mackerel by drifting and tolling with 

 l)ait did not come into general use until 181 2. The gear for catching, 

 previous to that, was a white hempen bob-line, as it was called, and the 

 style of fishing was called ' bobbing ' mackerel. These lines were some 

 seven fathoms in length, with a leaden sinker two inches long and shaped 

 like a pea-pod. At one end was a ganging about a foot long, for the 

 hook. Every few minutes off would go the hook, and extra hooks were 

 always in readiness to replace those lost. This mode continued until the 

 year 1S16, when Abraham Lurvey, of Pigeon Cove, discovered a method 

 of running lead around the hooks, and which were afterward calletl jigs. 

 This he kept secret for many months. The hooks then in use were nearly 

 as large as the haddock hooks of to-da}'. The small lines and fly-lines 

 did not come into use until about 1823. About this time the gaff was 

 introduced, and was abandoned after being used some ten years.* 



*Tlie mackerel gaff was used to some extent, by the hook and line fishermen, as late as 1865, and possibly- 

 even since that time. 



