372 REPOKT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [282] 



trips arrive slowly, as most of tlie fleet will remain late in order to fill 

 up with fat mackerel. — (Cape Ann Advertiser, October 10, 1862.) 



Mackerel were quite plenty in the bay on Wednesday, and the shore 

 fleet did a good day's work, some of them catching as high as 70 wash- 

 barrels. The mackerel are quite large, and the best of them sell readily 

 at $11 per barrel. — (Cape Ann Advertiser, October 17.) 



The Newburyport Herald says; "The mackerel have been swarming 

 in our bay for the last ten days ; 200 vessels and any number of small 

 boats were fishing. Vessels take from 5 to 40 barrels apiece. On Tues- 

 day the fleet numbered 4,000 vessels, and the fish were so plenty that 

 the 'Live Yankee,' with only 4 hands, brought in 10 barrels." — (Barn- 

 stable Patriot, October 14, 1862.) 



1862. — A BIG CATCH BY A HOOKER. 



Schooner " Nor' Wester" arrived from the Bay of Saint Lawarence yes- 

 terday. The day before leaving she took 123 wash-barrels of mackerel, 

 the value of which is $1,000.— (Oaoe Ann Advertiser, July 14, 1862.) 



1862. — KeMINISCENCES of CAPT. J. W. COLLINS. 



In the season of 1862 mackerel were quite plentiful in the Gulf of 

 Saint Lawrence, where the larger part of the fleet were engaged in this 

 fishery. Off our own coast there was a school of mixed mackerel — much 

 the greater portion being undersized — while among them were some 

 very large fish. After making two trips' cod fishing to George's I took 

 charge of the schooner " Hattie Lewis " and sailed for the Gulf of Saint 

 Lawrence on a mackerel trii> early in June. We fished principally on 

 Bank Bradley, about the North Cape of Prince Edward Island, oft' 

 Point Miscou and in the vicinity of Point Escuminac, taking a part of 

 our fare, however, in the latter locality. On our first trip we caught 

 208 sea-packed barrels, which were nearly all No. 3's, and started for 

 home early in July. After landing our fish we went back on a second 

 trip to the Gulf; obtained a fare of 200 barrels and left the bay early 

 in October. In the latter part of the fall we fished off Cape Ann and 

 around Cape Cod. On one occasion we found mackerel quite plenty 

 off" Chatham and got 50 wash-barrels in one day ; though the majority 

 of these were undersized fish there were a few among them remark- 

 ably large; some specimens which I weighed, after they had been 

 salted for a number of weeks, turned the scales at 2| pounds. The 

 following day we could find no fish in the same locality but struck 

 mackerel in the afternoon about 25 miles in a southerly and easterly 

 direction from Chatham, nearly down off the fishing-rip. These fish, 

 which were mo\dng quite rapidly in a southerly direction, were quite 

 different from those caught the day before, since we did not find any 

 large sized ones among them. On the third day the mackerel were 

 gone, and although we ran to the southward 15 or 20 miles farther we 



