124 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



The stake-nets arc used more particularly in the waters of the 

 Dominion for the capture of salmon. The weirs are more generally to 

 be found on the north side of Cape Cod and on the coast of Maine and 

 the Provinces. In these northern localities their use is principally con- 

 fined to the capture of the herring-. On Cape Cod, however, they take 

 immense numbers of sea herriug, alewives, and other species. 



Many minor varieties, and some of considerable prominence of both 

 pounds and weirs, are to be met with in different parts of the world. I 

 have, however, mentioned those in more general use in the United 

 States. 



Other methods. — The remaining methods of capturing fish most usually 

 employed are narcotics, poisons, and explosives. The narcotics and 

 poisons are essentially of a simple character, in some cases the fishes 

 being merely stupefied, and in others actually killed. These are not 

 used in sea fishing, but many an owner of a trout pond or stream has 

 had reason to deplore the dishonesty of the age in the loss he has expe- 

 rienced in a single night by the poacher who has resorted to poisons 

 for securing his bag of fish. Vegetable substances are generally used 

 for this purpose, some of them of a character very easily obtained. It 

 is not necessary for my present object to mention them. 



Explosives as a means of capturing fish have come into use quite re- 

 cently. The explosion of dynamite and other cartridges by means of a 

 time fuse or a wire often results in benumbing or killing large numbers 

 of fish. It is frequently employed by poachers upon trout or other 

 ponds. In the mining regions of California very great destruction to 

 trout and salmon in the rivers and pools has resulted from this practice. 

 In the sea not unfrequently the involuntary result of submarine explo- 

 sions, for the removal of sunken wrecks or rocks, is the destruction of 

 great numbers of fish, which show themselves on the surface soon after 

 the explosion. In some cases, as on the coast of California, where 

 schools of fish have been thus exposed, great slaughter has been pro- 

 duced in this way. This method of destroying fish is highly objection- 

 able, on the ground that it kills many more fish than can be utilized, as 

 they are washed away by the tides and lost. 



D. Bait used in the sea fisheries of eastern north America. 



• 



Baits and allurements. — Having thus presented an account of the more 

 effective apparatus by which fish are captured, I proceed to indicate the 

 more common baits and allurements to the hook or the net employed 

 by the American fishermen. These are of various kinds, the simplest 

 consisting of the naked hook, which by its rapid motion through the 

 water induces many fish to snap at it, and to be caught thereby. The 

 bluefisb, bass, pickerel, and many other varieties are caught with ahook 

 having some bright substance forming part of the shank. This may 

 be a piece of bright pewter, tin, bone, iron, or other substance, and 

 presented in the form of a plate, a cylinder, a spoon, or else a screw, 



