REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [110] 



town about the year 1841, where it is still prosecuted to a considerable 

 extent in addition to the stationary gill-net fishery which has been men- 

 tioned.* At first small open boats were used, such as the one described 

 and figured in the fishery census report under the name of "Province- 

 town drag-boat." About 1845 Proviucetown fishermen with their boats 

 and nets essayed dragging for mackerel in the vicinity of Monhegan, 

 Me., and by their example this practice was introduced into Maine, 

 and since that time it has been carried on at various points on the coast. 



sometimes eighteen of these nets are at! ached lengthways by tying along a thick 

 rope, called the drift-rope, and the ends of each net to each other. When arranged 

 for depositing in the sea, a large buoy attached to the end of the drift-rope is thrown 

 overboard, the vessel is put before the wind, and, as she sails along, the rope with 

 the nets thus attached is passed over the stern into the water till the whole of the 

 nets are thns thrown out. The nets thus deposited hang suspended in the water per- 

 pendicularly, 20 feet deep from the drift-rope and extending from three-quarters of a 

 mile to a mile, or even a mile and a half, depending on the number of nets belonging 

 to the party or company engaged ^n fishing together. When the whole of the nets 

 are thus handed out , the drift-rope is shifted from the stern to the bow of the vessel, and 

 she«rides by it as at anchor. The benefit gained by the boats hanging at the end of 

 the drift-rope is that the net is kept strained in a straight line, which, without this 

 pull upon it, would not be the case. The nets are 'shot' in the evening, and some- 

 times hauled once during the night ; at others, allowed to remain in the water all 

 night. The fish roving in the dark through the water hang in the meshes of the nets, 

 which are large enough to admit them beyond the gill-covers and pectoral-fins, but 

 not large enough to allow the thickest part of the body to pass through. In the 

 morning early preparations are made for hauling the nets. A capstan on the deck is 

 manned, about which two turns of drift-rope are taken ; one man stands forward to 

 untie the upper edge of each net from the drift-rope, which is called casting off the 

 lashings; others haul the net in with the fish caught, to which one side of the vessel 

 is devoted; the other side is occupied with the drift-rope, which is wound in by the 

 men at the capstan."— (The History of British Fishes, first edition, 1836, vol. 1, pp. 

 126, 127.) 



* Capt. N. E. Atwood, at Proviucetown, writes as follows in regard to the introdnc. 

 tion of the method of dragging for mackerel at Cape Cod : "As early as I can recollect 

 most of the mackerel taken along our coast were caught with hook and line. A few 

 gill-nets were set at moorings in our harbor and along the Truro shore during the first 

 part of the mackerel season or as soon as the fish came in. The mackerel which were 

 then taken in nets were sent to Boston market and sold fresh, sometimes bringing 

 good prices. As the mackerel would not bite at the hook when they first struck in we 

 would often get two weeks fishing before a sufficient quaDtity of mackerel were caught 

 on the hook to glut the market. Boston market being at that time small and no ice 

 used in packing, only a few fresh fish could be sold there at any one time. 



"In 1841 I went to Monomoy Bay (Chatham) to fish for shad; we went out in the 

 bay and put out our gill-nets and drifted with them all night, if the weather would 

 permit that mode of fishing, which we then and have always since called 'dragging.' 

 On my return home to engage in the mackerel net fishery, very few had been caught 

 in nets in our harbor, but large schools of mackerel had been passing in by Race Point 

 and Wood End, and were going up the bay. I took my mackerel nets in the boat and 

 and went out in the bay towards Plymouth, some two or three miles, and put them 

 out and drifted all night; next morning I found I had got a good catch. This occur- 

 rence took plack about the 15th of June, 1841. 



" It did not take the other fishermen long to get into this new way of fishing, and 

 since that time this method of drag-fishing has been adopted along the coast of Maine 

 and elsewhere." 



