306 LABRADOR 



can be baled out with large dippers. In this way as many 

 as one hundred quintals of fish have on many occasions 

 been caught at one haul, so that a whole year's wages can 

 be easily earned if there is one fortnight's good trapping 

 in the year. Nevertheless, as fish do not go to every point 

 every year, some fishermen who rely entirely on their traps 

 will sometimes make an absolute blank of it. The trap 

 is, moreover, exceedingly expensive, with its strong ropes, 

 heavy anchors, and immense weight of twine. A good one 

 costs between $300 and $400, containing three hundred and 

 fifty to five hundred pounds of twine. It is about three hun- 

 dred and fifty feet in circumference, eighty feet deep, and 

 may need a leader from fifty to sixty fathoms long. In 

 shallow waters, as in the Straits of Belle Isle, the trap may 

 be only thirty feet deep. Being very heavy and unwieldy, 

 it is often an impossible task to take it up in time to avoid 

 bad weather, or quickly enough to save it from driving ice. 

 The result is that in the sudden storms to which the coast 

 is liable, great losses occur. Honest men are suddenly 

 thrown into hopeless debt, as they have had to raise the 

 net on credit, and perhaps their sole method of getting 

 a voyage is lost in a moment. 



The old two-handed jacks, or bully boats, which, in the 

 autumn months, used to venture far off from the land with 

 hand-lines, now lie rotting on the rocks at all the harbours 

 on the coast. The fishery is developing into a great gamble. 

 A man casts all he has and all he can borrow on a single 

 issue. At times it renders him a magnificent and rapid 

 return. If the fish come to his trap he obtains a sudden 

 wealth, whereas if the fish do not come he goes home a 

 broken man. 



