42 EEPORT OF COMMISSIOJs^ER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



fifteen pounds, getting;- twelve out of a liundred of tliat size. That is 

 when they are ])assing bacii. We'have caiiglit some in the nets this 

 spring' that weighed ten pounds. We can catch blue-fish steadily 

 throughout the summer ; generally get some every day while they 

 are here. When we get two tides a day we get more fish. They come 

 in on the flood, and we take them when tiiey are goiug out. We inva- 

 riably catch them on the ebb. [It was here explained that the nets are 

 set parallel to the shore.] The bait comes in-shore nights, and, I pre- 

 sume, they follow it in. They feed on herring and such like. They will 

 eat all the scup they can get. 



[The line-fishermen denied this statement, generally agreeing that 

 they never find any pieces of scup in the blue-fish.] 



3Ir. S>:ow. I have seen hundreds and thousands of little scup in them. 

 They will pick up a crab, and when they cannot get anything else they 

 will eat sand-squibs. I have found shell-fish in them, that they pick up 

 from the bottom. On the line-fishing grounds the blue-fish do not eat 

 scup, because they have spurs on them. 



[It was generally agreed that they will eat small scup, and that they 

 wouhl drive away the scup, that run for protection into the eel-grass.] 



Mr. Andrews. I think a large one would not run away. 



Mr. Snow. I have seen the largest scup in them, and even blue-fish 

 in blue-fish. I don't think they waste any fish they catch. 



Mr. WiNSLOW. Nine-tenths of the blue-fish have no scup in them ; 

 but most of them have menhaden in them. There are no blue-fish here in 

 the winter. They come about the 1st of June. I think there are fewer 

 in tlie harbor this year than heretofore. 



Mr. Snow. We have probably two this year to one last year. 



Mr. WiNSLOW. We do not catch so many with the hook. 



jNIr. Snow. We get some e^ery day, but not so plenty- as for a time 

 back. 



Question. How do you explain that there are three times as many in 

 the seines and less caught with hooks! 



Mr. WiNSLow. Those caught in the seines are small. 



Mr. Snow. We get as great a x)roportion of large ones as we did last 

 year. I think blue-tish are more plenty in nets than last year. 



Mr. Andrews. That is my explanation, too — because the nets have 

 destroyed the hook-fishing. 



Mr. WiNSLOW. We used to get from two to three hundred blue-fish 

 in a day through the season. 



Question. Have the select-men given permission to put down traps ? 



Mr. Macy. They have not refused any. 



Mr. Snow. The pounds did not do well last year, because they were 

 not rigged right. I never fished with a pound, and don't know any- 

 thing about them. Fishing with pounds is much more expensive than 

 with set or gill nets. It would cost $6,000 to put down a pound at 

 Great Point. I do not think there are more than twice as many gill or 

 dritt nets this year as last. There are about fifty gill-nets out belonging 

 to the people of Nantucket, and some fifteen or twenty to others, all on 

 the north side of the island. They are twenty-five to fifty fathon)s long, 

 jind from thirty to fifty meshes wide. Tlie size of the mesh is from four 

 and one-fourth to four and one-half inches, No. 15 or No. 10 thread. 

 We get the largest blue-fish in the fall. The biggest one I ever heard 

 of weighed twenty-five pounds. I have seen two fish that weighed forty 

 pounds, one weighing eighteen and the other twenty-two. 



GEESH03I Finney. I think blue-fish are more plenty this year than 



