REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS. 5 



more familiar with it than I am. The Menhaden fishery for the whole coast has 

 been a fairly prosperous business. 



Some of the Chesapeake fishermen started out in March with the idea of going 

 South to find them in their Southern quarters, but they had not gone far south 

 of Cape Hatteras when they found them very abundant; they fished on them and 

 followed them into Chesapeake Bay, where they had very good fishing for a 

 short time. They w^ere next seen on the Jersey coast, and in and around Sandy 

 Hook Bay where they had good fishing for a while, then the fish turned and 

 went into Chesapeake Bay where they had very heavy fishing all summer. This 

 body of fish was small in size and very poor in yield of oil. The body that 

 locates on our coast struck in in May, great bodies of them located in Long Island 

 Sound and in Narragansett and Buzzard's Bay, and also in Boston Bay, and the 

 bays and rivers of Maine. No great catches were made in INIaine or Boston Bay 

 owing to the fish being on the rocks and in strong tides in the latter place and 

 on account of their not showing but a short time each day in Maine. 



Good catches were made in our bays and rivers until they w^ent out of them 

 early in August, as they usually do. The very blowy weather in October and 

 November was fatal to the fall fishing, which would have been good under 

 more favorable conditions of weather, as there were large bodies of fish seen all 

 along the coast. 



Some of the Southern boats followed the Menhaden south of Hatteras, and 

 they told me that the bodies were so full of live sharks when they got there that 

 it was impossible to catch them, they would bite the seine so badl3\ 



Blue fish have been very abundant south of Moutauk all of the season, so much 

 so that half of the fishing smacks engaged in catching them, hauled up early in 

 the season, Squiteague have also been abundant as have been about all of the 

 local varieties of our coast, such as Summer Scup, Tautog and other varieties. 

 Striped Bass have been caught in larger quantities this summer than for several 

 years. 



The Whiting catch is a wonder; they have been so abundant in Province town 

 Bay as to spoil the fishing for other varieties, the pounds being full of them 

 nearly all the time. I am sorry I cannot go into the matter of local fishing more 

 thoroughly, but I have been home so little this summer that I have had a very 

 poor idea of it. 



Thanking you for your kind expressions, 



I am, &c. , 



N. B. CHURCir. 



