THE MACKEREL AND ITS ALLIES. i8i 



The mackerel fishery at the time of its highest developement, from 1820 

 to 1870, was carried on ahiiost exclusively by the use of little hooks with 

 heavily weighted shanks, known as "mackerel jigs." For many years 

 there were from six-hundred to nine-hundred vessels, chiefly from Cape 

 Cod and northward, engaged in this fishery; and in the year 1S31 tlie 

 total amount of mackerel salted in INIaine, New Hampshire and ]\Iassachu- 

 settcs was 450,000 barrels. 



The jig has now Ijcen almost entirely superseded by the purse-seine, and 

 this radical change in the method of catching mackerel has caused the 

 desertion, by the mackerel fleet, of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the 

 practical futility — to benefit our fishermen — of the fishery clauses of the 

 Treaty of Washington. All attempts, with very few exceptions, to use 

 the purse-seine in the Gulf of St. Lawrence have been failures. 



The purse-seine has come into general use since 1850, and with its in- 

 troduction the methods of the mackerel fishery have been totally 

 revolutionized. The most extensive changes, however, have taken place 

 since 1870, for it is only during the last ten years that the use of the 

 purse-seine has been at all universal. As late as 1873 and 1874 a few ves- 

 sels have fished with the old apparatus in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and 

 also a few on the coast of New England. Such changes in the manner of 

 fishing for mackerel have brought about also a change in the fishing 

 grounds. A^essels fishing in the old style were most successful in the Gulf 

 of St Lawrence, but the purse-seine can be used to very much better 

 advantage along our own shores between Cape Hatteras and the Bay of 

 Fundy. 



Considerable quantities of Mackerel are sometimes caught in gill-nets 

 at various points along the New England coast from Vineyard Sound to 

 Eastport. For the most part, however, they are taken west of Mount 

 Desert. This fishery is carried on in two ways : The gill-nets may be 

 anchored and left out over night, as is the custom about Provincetown, 

 or they may be set from a boat or vessel. The latter method is called 

 "dragging;" the vessels are called "draggers," or " drag-boats," and 

 the fishermen "mackerel draggers." The Mackerel gill-nets are 20 to 30 

 fathoms long, 2/4 fathoms deep, with a mesh varying from 2 J'^ to 3 inches. 

 In Provincetown harbor they are set in the following manner : 



Active and beautiful, strong, hungry and courageous, the Mackerel 

 possesses all the attributes of a game fish, and were it not so abundant it 



