176 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Q. That was not derived from us? — A. No. Travelers Lave found tlieni in use when 

 the iirst white men came among them. We have specimens in great numher of the 

 trawl of the native savage. Ours have only been brought in within the last five or 

 six years. I don't think it is possible to fix the date of the first use of the trawl. 

 They have been traced back to such a period that there is no possibility of saying 

 that it was introduced by this man or known to that one. 



Q. What are the advantages of the method of trawl-fishing for cod ? — A. The al- 

 leged advantages, as far as I have heard them spoken of, are the larger yield of the 

 fishery. The same number of men in the same time, and in the same locality, will 

 catch a larger faro of fish with the trawl than with hand-lines. Then they require 

 less exposure of the fishermen. They can be set over night and left down through 

 the day at times when the weather would be too inclement for hand-line fishing. 

 Then it requires much less skillful fishermen to use the trawl than the hand-lines. 

 It is merely a matter of putting on the bait and throwing it overboard, and it does 

 not require the delicate manipulation and skill that the hand-line fishing does, and 

 therefore does not call into play to the same extent the functions of the practiced 

 fisherman. 



Q. Now, are there any disadvantages connected with the use of the trawl, alleged 

 or actual? — A. There area great many accusations brought against it. How far 

 these are valid it is impossible forme to say. The principal objection I suppose is 

 that it tempts all kinds of fish. One objection is that it takes fish that are too small 

 size. They use a smaller hook than the ordinary hand-lines, and they say it takes a 

 great many unmarketable fish, which affects the supply. Then another complaint is 

 that the fish being longer in the water are liable to be destroyed by the depredations 

 of sharks, dogfish, and fish of that class. Another objection is that after the fish are 

 caught the marketable fish, owing to their weight, slip off from the small hook and 

 float away and are lost. Another objection is that they catch what they call mother 

 fish, that is the parent fish, which some fishermen think should be left to reproduce 

 their kind. 



Q. If they are taken after depositing their spawn you only lose one fish? — A. Yes; 

 but it is probable, judging from the testimony of fishermen, that the fish can be 

 taken during their spawning season with a trawl when they will not bite a hook. 

 As a general thing very few will bite on the ordinary line, but the trawl bait is said 

 to be attractive to them, and the fish are believed to be more likely to take the bait 

 at that time from a trawl than from a hook on an ordinary line. 



Q. Well, taking the reasons given both ways, what conclusion have you come to 

 about the use of the trawl for cod-fishing? — A. Well, it is j ust one of the wholesale modes 

 of capture, which it is difficult to avoid, because the tendency is to centralize, to ac- 

 complish the same work by less expenditure of money and of human force. 



Q. Do you think it is a case for prohibition or regulation ? — A. I don'tsee how it can 

 be either prohibited or regulated. I hardly see. Of course I have had no practical ex- 

 perience. Imay say that the trawl is used very much less on the coast of America than 

 on the coast of England and of Europe generally, and I have failed to find anywhere in 

 the English writers or in the testimony of the British Fishery Commission any complaint 

 there such as occurs in America. There is a great complaint there against what is called 

 the beam-trawl. When they speak of the trawl they don't mean what we mean. 

 What they refer to is a trawl such as we use in our steamer to capture flounders and 

 such fish. Wherever you see the word trawl used by an English or European writer 

 you must apply it to that largo net that is dragged behind the vessel along the bot- 

 tom of the sea. The word trawl is never applied in Europe to the line, and, there- 

 fore, there is a great deal of vagueness and error involved in the consideration of the 

 subject unless you know what the particular speaker or witness means by a trawl. 

 But speakiug of the long-line, which is the general term, or bultow, I have failed to 

 find in the reports of the British Fishery Commission any complaint by anybody ex- 

 cept three cases of complaint against the trawl-line or long-line. One was that it 



