198 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



yards long, wortli $3,745. The nets were set about February 1 for 

 striped bass, and the season for taking shad extended from March 20 

 to the beginning of May, the yield numbering 23,524 roes and 13,255 

 bucks, valued locally at $2,974. The price during that season was 

 unusually small, the lowest certainly within the last ten years. 



Six seines were used in the extreme northern end of Chesapeake 

 Bay in 1896, their location being as follows: Carrot Cove (1 seine), Car- 

 penter Point (1 seine), Fishing Battery Light (2 seines), and Spesutie 

 Island (2 seines). The length ranges from 1,500 to 2,500 yards, the 

 aggregate of the 6 seines being 11,600 yards, with 2 to 3 inch mesh. 

 The value of the 6 seines was $10,200, and the number of fishermen 

 employed 306, with 268 shoresmen. The season began the second week 

 of April and lasted six or seven weeks, the catch numbering 14,560 

 roes and 18,052 bucks, worth $3,902. The yield of alewives numbered 

 6,516,000. In addition to the above, there was one seine on Miller 

 Island used for taking striped bass and perch, in which some shad were 

 caught. This seine was 600 yards in length, required 10 men to operate 

 it, and the catch of shad numbered 480 roes and 530 bucks. Large 

 quantities of alewives were obtained, but on account of the low prices 

 ruling for these fish very few of them were marketed. 



The two seines at the Fishing Battery Light are operated from large 

 floats or batteries, containing stables, storehouses, salting sheds, quar- 

 ters for the men, etc. An average float is simply a large raft, 60 by 80 

 feet, of suflicient buoyancy to be removed to any desirable point on the 

 flats, where it is secured into position by piles passing through wells in 

 the raft. Each of three sides of the float is provided with an apron 45 

 feet wide, held in position by stout chains, and which can be raised or 

 lowered at will. This ajiron provides an inclined plane, on which the 

 seine is hauled in the same manner as at shore seines. The selection 

 of the side on which the hauling is made is determined by the direction 

 of the current, the wind, etc. The fourth side is used as a wharf. When 

 practicable three hauls are usually made each day, two on the ebb tides 

 and one on a flood tide, the yield of shad on the former being five or 

 six times as great as the latter. 



Of the 69 pound nets ox)erated in the upper portion of Chesapeake 

 Bay in 1896, 46 were located between Turkey Point and Northeast, 7 

 between Charlestown and Carpenter Point, 6 ofl' Betterton near the 

 mouth of the Sassafras River, and 6 on the western shore from Miller 

 Island to North Point. These nets cost from $50 to $150 each. They 

 are usually set in strings containing from 2 to 4 nets each. They are 

 not operated especially for shad, and that species represents only a 

 small proportion of the total catch, the shad yield in 1896 numbering 

 only 9,839, worth $1,099. 



The use of pound nets or stake nets is prohibited "in Chesapeake 

 Bay, north of a line 1 mile south of Pool Island, except the bay shore 

 of Kent County up to Howell Point at the mouth of Sassafras River." 



