THE COD FISHERIES NEAR THE LOFFODEN ISLANDS. 575 



time near the West Loffoden aud far east near Skraaveu and the Molla 

 Islands, while scarcely any fish are caught in all the intervening space. 

 A considerable difference has also been noticed in the size aud quality 

 of the fish caught at the different fishing stations. Near the West Lof- 

 foden the fish are generally small, while further east, near East Vaago, 

 they are considerably larger, and the fish caught near the East Loffo- 

 den east of Skraaveu and the Molla Islands in the Raft Sound and the 

 Kanstad fiord have always been known for their great size and their fat 

 flesh. Even in places not so far distant from each other a difference in 

 the fish may be noticed. Thus it is said that those codfish which are 

 caught near Balstad on the island of West Yaago are considerably 

 smaller than those caught at any other place in the Loffoden Islands. 

 The fishermen even maintain that they could notice a certain difference 

 iu the different schools approaching one and the same fishing stations, 

 so that they could tell immediately from the looks of the fish whether a 

 new school had come in. It will be seen from this that even if at the 

 beginning of the fishing season there is very good fishing near the 

 West Loffoden, one cannot with, certainty count on this being the case 

 near the eastern islands, and even if but few fish have made their ap- 

 pearance near the western islands, there is no reason for supposing that 

 the fishing near the eastern islands will be poor. 



The codfish which come to the Loffoden Islands seem therefore 

 to belong to many different tribes living independent of each other 

 in the different ravines and basins of the bottom of the sea. And, 

 as I said before, I consider it highly probable that these basins or 

 ravines are not very far from the coast, but generally between the coast 

 and the so-called " ocean-bridge" (hav broen), mentioned above. I have 

 good reasons to suppose that at any rate a large portion of the Loffoden 

 codfish, during the rest of the year, stay at a great depth in the West 

 fiord itself. Erom some of the men who used to row me about on my 

 journeys of investigation I heard the following which seems to point in 

 the same direction : Some fishermen who were out fishing on the West 

 fiord, at a distance of 3-4 (Norwegian) miles from the coast, near the 

 end of May, — consequently, long after the time when the last codfish has 

 left the Loffoden Islands, — noticed that as soon as the bait approached 

 the bottom something commenced to pull at it. As they were anxious 

 to see what sort of fish would come up, and as they happened to have 

 a line of extraordinary length, they let it go down, and soon caught a 

 fish, which certainly was a codfish, differing in nothing from the well- 

 known Loffoden codfish. It is true that this is only a single instance, 

 and other fishermen have made the same experiment without obtaining 

 this result ; but, on the other hand, it must be remembered that the cod- 

 fish, when living at a great depth, must live more scattered in order to 

 find their food, and that they cannot live together in such thick schools 

 as when they come near the coast to spawn. 



