PEESENT CONDITION OF THE FISHERIES. 



19 ' 



pounds of flsli killed by it in one niolit. Scup will not go up Provi- 

 dence Kiver ; it i.s nothing but a niud-liole. It is only in the pounds 

 that we get the little scup. Wiien tish were running here, we caught a 

 great nuiny young scup from two to five inches long. I never knew 

 anything like it before ; none of us ever saw it before. If it had occurred 

 it would have been observei'. Menhaden have been nu)re plenty this 

 year than for many years before. I heard a regular fisherman say he 

 never knew such July fishing as there has been this year in the West 

 Eiver. Menhaden are caught in the pounds in the spring of the year. 

 Forty to fifty barrels of menhaden would be a large yield. Jiut tiie 

 l)urse-nets take as many as they can hold, and sometimes they lose 

 their nets; they cannot gather up the fish soon enough, and they would 

 die and sink ; and they would have to cut open the seine. 



We get mackerel here in this harbor ; they are poor in the spring, and 

 have si)awn in them. In August they liave no spawn in them. We do 

 not catch any tish much when they are full of spawn, neither black-fish 

 nor scup, nor the first run of mackerel. Here are ninety to one hundred 

 sail of mackerel-catchers lying oft' here, and they take the fattest mack- 

 erel 1 have ever seen. Last year was the first time they have ever done 

 it. Mackerel promise to be plenty this year. There is no sale for the 

 spring-catch ; they are jioor mackerel. 



Question. If we had three times as many scup as we now liave, could 

 we buy them for any less money ? 



Answer. If the fish were not exported from Ehode Island, they would 

 not be worth a cent a i^ound. 



Question. Why has the wholesale price been less this year than 

 before '? 



Answer. It is because of the increase of pounds in Vineyard Sound, 

 and they all send fish to New York. Scpieteague run from three to ten , 

 pounds. Large ones began to come here five or six years ago. They are ' 

 much larger now than they used to be. They were here once before, 

 and went off more than forty years ago, and they have not been plenty 

 since until within a few years. 



When the blue-fish first came back, the people would not eat them ; 

 there was no sale for them ; people said they would make a sore on 

 those that eat them. The prejudice against them was so great that you 

 could not sell one in market. 



In 1854 I used to catch the bull's eye. They were here for a consider- 

 able time after that, and had been oft' and on before that. They were 

 not a regular fish. 



There is only one i>ound at Saughkonet Eiver. I have the only one 

 there. There was one set up in Coddington's Cove by a man by the 

 name of Clarke. He got a great many Spanish mackerel, and that set 

 us after them. The right to fish is as perfect as any right we have 

 here in Ehode Island. The right to the fisheries and the right to the 

 shore are all the same. All the people have a right to go on the shore, 

 being- only liable for any damage. There is a path clear round from the 

 bathing-houses to the boat-house here. The right is universally recog- 

 nized in Ehode Island. 



Newport, Ehode Island, 



August o, 1871. 

 Nathaniel Smith : 



I am seventy-three years old. I have fished forty-six years. There 

 were scarcely any fish when I left the business, three years ago, on 



