[15] GILL-NETS IN THE COD FISHERY. 279 



iiitrodnccMl, did from the liand-liner^, some thirty years ago. Notwith- 

 siaiidiii};-, however, that many of the lishermeii were inclined at tlu' start 

 to in\eigh against ''building a fence" to prevent the fish from moving 

 about on the bottom, it was not long before they all began to realize the 

 advantages of using gill-nets. It is said that whenever in port the deck 

 of the Xorthern Eagle was crowded with tishermeu anxious to learn 

 about the method of capture which she had adopted. Before the close 

 of the first winter several vessels, both froui Gloucester and from other 

 I>oris, lifted out, to a greater or less extent, with nets. As a rule those 

 s(thooners connnenced their operations so late in the season that they 

 could not make a fair test of the gill-nets, for the school of spawning 

 fish that had been in I[)swich Bay began to leave the shore-grounds 

 soon after the vessels began operatious. 



Gill-net fishing for cod and pollock opened favorably in the winter of 

 1882, but the shore codfish were much less abundant during the greater 

 part of that winter than in the previous year; and consequently the 

 success of this branch of the fisheries was not so pronounced as has 

 generally been the case. 



Writing under date of ^S^ovember 15, 1881, Captain Martin says: " I 

 hud that pollock will mesh as well as codfish. The first night the 

 schooner Maud Gertrude set her nets, twelve in number, they caught 

 3,000 pounds of pollock and 2,000 pounds of cod. The nets were set 

 on ' Browns.' [This is a small rocky shoal lying off to the southward 

 of Eastern Point, at the entrance to Gloucester Harbor.] * * * 

 Cajitain Gill told me that if the nets had 8-inch meshes they could get 

 them full of pollock. The lO-inch mesh catches large pollock, some of 

 them weighing 20, 21, and 21i|^ pounds." The nets were often very badly 

 torn by the pollock, which is well known to be a remarkably strong and 

 active fish. 



It does not seem necessary that I should go into detailed statements 

 of statistics of the amount taken each season, since the following in- 

 stances that are given of catches made on various occasions will, I think 

 serve to convey a fair idea of the results obtained. 



Although the winter of 1881-'82 was unquestionably the least pro- 

 ductive of any season since the introduction of gill-nets into the shore 

 cod fishery, we find that the catches were often of considerable magni- 

 tude. For instance, Captain Martin mentions the following facts : 

 Early in November twelve nets set in Ipswich Bay caught 12,000 pounds 

 of cod in two nights' fishing. A little later the i!^orthern Eagle land<Hl 

 3.3,000 pounds of large cod from an eight days' trip, stocking $800, and 

 each of her crew sharing $03. Captain Martin, writing under date of 

 December 0, said that during the previous weelv there were 145,000 

 pounds of codfish caught in gill-nets, and he makes this remark, -' If 

 it were not for the gill-nets we could not get fish enough to eat." He 

 also says, '' All the vessels that were fishing with trawls are getting 

 nets." Again, on December 22, he states, "There were 105,000 pounds of 



