10G REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



part of the time, they also make trips to Le Have Bank, Brown's Bank, 

 Seal Island Ground, German Bank, and occasionally to some other 

 grounds. A few trips have been made as far east as the Western Bank 

 (Western Bank and Le Have trips are usually made in December and 

 January), and as far south as Block Island, but only at rare intervals. 

 The greater part of the vessels composing the mackerel fleet are 

 clipper schooners, many of them being equal in appearance and sailing 

 qualities to first-class yachts. It has already been mentioned that some 

 of them carry a great amount of light sail, but while this is true of the 

 larger vessels and for some others, there are a few of the smaller ones 

 that have no flying-jibs. The average size of the mackerel catchers is 

 about GO tons, the extremes being from about 20 to 151 tons. There 

 are few, however, over 100 tons ; and the largest one is a three-masted 

 schooner. 



The bankers average larger than the vessels employed in other fish- 

 eries. Few are less than GO tons; the average size is about 75 tons; 

 while a small number are more than 100, and the largest, a three-masted 

 schooner, is 103 tons. The fleet is composed chiefly of the finest class 

 of sea-going vessels, and this may especially be said of those employed 

 in the bank halibut fishery. There are, however, a few old-fashioned 

 schooners that make trips for cod in summer. The salt carried by the 

 cod-fishermen serves for ballast, and this is stowed in "pens" or bins in 

 the hold. The halibut catchers and a few other bankers are ballasted 

 like the Georgesmen, though perhaps not so heavily, the ice and salt 

 they carry making up the deficiency. The fishing-grounds visited by 

 the bank fleet extend from Le Have Bank to Davis Strait, although 

 the Grand Bank, Banquereau, and Western Bank are the principal ones. 

 The vessels of the ISTew York market fleet belong chiefly to the ports 

 on Long Island Sound. They differ in some respects from the vessels 

 of Northern New England, as they are, with the exception of the halibut 

 catchers, nearly all welled smacks, and a considerable portion of them 

 are sloops. The smacks take the greater part of their catch to market 

 alive, preserving, however, the dead fish in ice. The vessels engaged 

 in the halibut fishery are arranged somewhat similar to those already 

 mentioned, and the fish are kept in the same manner, namely, by icing 

 them. Although there is not so large a proportion of extremely sharp 

 vessels in the New York fleet as in the fishing fleet north of Cape Cod, 

 there is, nevertheless, a general resemblance between the schooner- 

 rigged vessels and those of Massachusetts. The average size of the 

 market smacks is about 40 tons, the extremes being 20 and 65 tons. The 

 smacks fish from Cape Henlopen to George's Bank, principally on some 

 part of the shore soundings, catching cod, haddock, &c, in the winter, 

 and besides these several other varieties in summer. The halibut catch- 

 ers go farther east on George's Bank and adjacent grounds. The few 

 vessels employed in the southern coast fisheries belong to the same 

 class as the smacks that have been mentioned ; indeed the greater part 

 of them were built in the ports of Long Island Sound. 



