1100 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



6. The year tbe cutters were about the Americans were pretty well 

 kept off. It is a great inconvenience to them to be kept out of the shore 

 fishing. With an off-shore wind they often throw over bait and draw 

 the mackerel off. Certainly the shores around here are a benefit to the 

 Americans. 



7. The mackerel fishing begins about the first of July, and lasts till 

 the end of September, any way. 



8. As a general thing, people here with nets can get as many herring 

 as they want ; they are used for bait. Every boat uses on an average 

 seven or eight barrels for the season, that is, the small boats along here, 

 The large ones use much more. 



JAMBS CONROY. 



Sworn to at Kildare, in Prince County, in Prince Edward Island, this 

 27th day of June, A. D. 1877, before me. 



JOSEPH MAcGILVRAY, 

 J. P. for Prince County, Prince Edward Island. 



I, JAMES F. WHITE, of Alberton, in Prince County, in Prince Edward 

 Island, merchant, make oath and say : 



1. That I have been engaged in the fishing business for the last fifteen 

 years as the owner of boats and vessels. I know the fishing grounds 

 well, and I know where both boats and schooners fish, and the best fishing 

 grounds. At the present time I have one schooner and ten boats, carry- 

 ing about fifty men, engaged in fishing. 



2. That about forty boats are fishing out of Cascumpec Harbor during 

 the present year. These forty boats are manned by about one hundred 

 and fifty men. The average yearly catch of each boat is about seventy- 

 five barrels of mackerel, fifty quintals of codfish, and fifty quintals of 

 hake. Herring are caught along the shore, and are used for bait. Each 

 fishing stage, in an average year, uses about three hundred barrels of 

 herring for bait. 



3. The American fleet generally enters the bay during the month of 

 June or the beginning of July. The mackerel are then generally on 

 shore. The Americans are often afraid to follow the mackerel as close 

 to the shore as the fish come, owing to the water being too shoal, close 

 to tbe shore, for their vessels, and then they launch their boats and 

 follow the mackerel inshore in them. 



4. The mackerel generally move off shore about the first of October. 

 The off-shore catch is very uncertain, owing to the weather in the fall 

 being often bad. 



5. During the summer months the Americans invariably fish within 

 three miles of the shore, and do very much damage to our boat fishing. 

 They come in among our boats and draw off the mackerel. For the past 

 ten years I think the average number of American vessels would be two 

 hundred and fifty, and they average five hundred barrels each year. 

 The year before last (1875) some vessels took eleven hundred barrels out 

 of the bay in three trips. Last year the mackerel were scarce, and the 

 highest catch about three hundred and fifty barrels. I never knew the 

 mackerel so scarce in the bay as they were last year. This year (1877) 

 the prospects are good, the mackerel plenty ; the bay appears to be full 

 of them. 



C. VVben the cutters were about, watching the fishing grounds, the 

 American fleet would go out of the harbor, send one of their number to 



