[85] HISTORY OF THE MACKEREL FISHERY. 



wood or of metal, by which the lines were kept in their places while 

 the men were fishing - . 



The bait-boxes were fastened on the starboard side ; these were 

 wooden troughs holding from one to seven or eight buckets of bait apiece. 

 There were three of these bait-boxes, the largest placed outside of the 

 rail at the foot of the main rigging, one on the quarter near the davit ; 

 the third was placed at the fore rigging. The forward and after bait- 

 boxes were usually less than half as large as the one amidship. The 

 bait-mill was placed on deck, on the port side of the vessel, near the main 

 rigging. During the later years of this fishery many of the vessels 

 carried on the deck at the foot of the main rigging on the starboard side 

 a bait-chest divided into two compartments, the smaller one for the 

 clam bait and the larger one for the ground menhaden bait. On such 

 schooners as were not provided with a bait-chest, the ground bait, or 

 chum, was kept in barrels. Two of these barrels were generally kept 

 near the starboard main rigging, so that those who threw out the toll- 

 bait could refill the boxes with as little loss of time as possible. 



The hold was left unobstructed by bulkheads; the ballast was usually 

 gravel or pebbles and was not covered by a platform. Some vessels 

 carried part of their ballast in barrels, throwing it overboard when the 

 barrels were needed for fish. The number of barrels carried by a vessel 

 would vary, according to her size, from one hundred to six or seven 

 hundred, part of these being filled with salt and bait. The mackerel- 

 hookers usually carried a single boat (of the yawl pattern) at the stern. 

 Occasionally vessels going to fish on the coast of Labrador, or at the 

 mouth of the Saint Lawrence, or even on the coast of New England, 

 carried a number of dories or other boats, which were used by the men 

 when they fished in the harbors.* 



25. — Apparatus and methods of fishing. 



{a.) The mackerel jig. — The mackerel jig is said to have been invented 

 about the year 1815, by Abraham Lurvey, of Pigeon Cove; according 

 to other authority by one Thurlow, of Newburyporti It is simply a 



" In certain localities the mackerel could only be taken to good advantage among 

 the rocks close to the shore; and the men lished from small boats rather than from 

 the side of the vessel. 



t According to Captain Merchant, the "mackerel jig" was introduced at Cape Ann 

 abont 1815. Mr. Abraham Lurvey, of Pigeon Cove, was one of the first to use them, 

 and was supposed to have invented them. The advantages of this new invention im- 

 mediately brought it into general use. Before "jigs" were devised, the "gangings" 

 of the mackerel lines would frequently break when the iish was jerked or "slatted" 

 off the hook; when the "jig" is used this rarely occurs. Before the time of the "jig" 

 it was customary to bait the hooks, when mackerel were plenty, with pieces of pork 

 " as big as a four-pence-ha'penny." 



According to Captains Daniel Cameron and John Grey, of Southport, Me., Edward 

 Caiss, a tisherman of Hingham, Mass., invented the mackerel jig between the years 

 1810 and 1814, and by 1829 it had come into general use on the coast of Maine. It 

 was introduced into Maine some time before 1829, but by whom no one knows. — 

 [Eaell.] 



