MEMBERS OF THE HAND-LINE-COMMITTEE. 113 



comes the arbiter in all piscatorial disputes, as well as the 

 counselor in all arrangements of fishing-tackle, until some 

 other boy takes a larger fish. 



But the blackfish, or tautogj is not ta be disdained by the 

 disciple of rod and reel. Though he is eminently a commer- 

 cial fish, yet a tide-runner of his family which weighs from 

 eight to twelve pounds makes such dips and runs as try both 

 the angler and his tackle. A somewhat celebrated senator 

 of Rhode Island (now the Chinese embassador) used annual- 

 ly to spend several summer weeks in fishing for tautog with 

 an artistically-rigged hand-line. He sculled his boat to the 

 edge of the tide, on the bank between a rapid current and 

 nearly slack water, and near an islet or reef of rocks in the 

 Seconnet River, where the water is about fifteen feet deep ; 

 anchored his punt firmly, standing up in the stern, and cast 

 some seventy-five feet of line, armed with two hooks about 

 two feet above the sinker, and baited with clam. In this 

 way I have known him to take one hundred pounds of tau- 

 tog in one hour. 



At the mouth of the Seconnet River there are numerous 

 pounds, built of stone, or staked out with netting, for the 

 purpose of catching tautog, porgee or scapogue, as the 

 large ones are called and numerous minor bottom fry. Re- 

 cently a salmon was caught in one of these infamous traps, 

 and, if it is seriously contemplated to restore salmon to our 

 deserted rivers, the first step should be to take up all nets 

 fastened to stakes in the rivers and along the coast. 



Tautog are eaten while fresh. Neither the tautog or any 

 other fish of the estuaries whicli is angled for are cured b) T 

 salt or refrigeration. They are, as it were, hand-to-mouth 

 fishes. Both the tautog and sea bass are kept alive many 

 days, and sometimes weeks, in fish-cars anchored in water 

 suited to their growth. The blackfish is next to the shad in 

 affording the greatest amount of estuary fish to our markets. 

 Its meat is watery, and the scales are so firmly set that some 

 persons invariably lave them in vinegar before scaling. In 



II 



