AWARD OP THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1143 



the fish to speak of beyond three miles from the shore. I am certain 

 and positively swear that fully nine-tenths, and I believe more than that 

 proportion of my entire catch was taken within three miles of the shore; 

 the nearer to the shore I could get the better it would be for catching 

 fish. One reason of that is that the mackerel keep close inshore to get 

 the fishes they feed on, and these little fishes keep in the eddies of the 

 tide quite close to the shore. 



5. If I had been prevented from catching fish within these three miles 

 I am satisfied I could not have got any fish at all. 



6. Along Prince Edward Island the fishermen sometimes get good 

 catches more than three miles from the shores. This is caused by the 

 large fleets of vessels who only fish when the wind is off shore, drawing 

 the schools of mackerel out into the gulf by throwing bait while fishing 

 and drifting off from the land. It is necessary, however, for the fishin 4 

 vessels to go close inshore before they can raise the mackerel and to 

 draw them off. If the fishing vessels were kept oat of the three- miles 

 belt or limit the same result would follow as off Cape Breton ; no mack- 

 erel would be taken. 



6. Later on in the season the fishing fleet, by constantly throwing bait 

 and drawing the mackerel from the shore, manage to get the fish in 

 deeper water, and then, sometimes, catches are made at long distances 

 from the shore. 



7. In Bay de Chateur catches of mackerel are sometimes made or taken 

 more than three miles from shore, but this is the result of their being 

 drawn off' shore by the fleet fishing, the same as off the other coasts I 

 have spoken of. 



8. The American fishing fleet frequented the gulf in great numbers 

 during the years I fished, but their numbers varied greatly, sometimes 

 numbering five hundred and sometimes one thousand. 



9. These American fishermen got their catches in the same places we 

 did. They took the fish close in to the shore ; that is, by far the larger 

 proportion of them ; and the opinion of the American fishermen was 

 universal that, if they were excluded from fishing within these three 

 miles off the shore, they might as well at once abandon the fishery. 



10. The fishing was principally carried on by hook and line, but since 

 the Treaty of Washington Americans have used, to a considerable ex- 

 tent, purse-seines to catch the mackerel. 



11. I am satisfied that the fishing grounds are seriously injured by 

 the American fishing fleet throwing over the offal from the mackerel 

 when cleaning them ; and I am acquainted with localities where the fish- 

 ing was 'temporarily destroyed from this cause. Boat fishermen never 

 throw over the offal ; they carry it on shore with them. 



12. I was one of the officers of the Sweepstake, one of the Canadian 

 marine-police cruisers, one year the year 1869 and of the S. G. Mar- 

 shall during the years 1870 and 1871. The S. G. Marshall was another 

 of these cruisers. Our duties were to enforce the law preventing Amer- 

 ican fishing vessels from fishing along the inshores. The two first years 

 our station for cruising lay between Picton and St. Paul's Island, and 

 the last year from Shediac to Gaspe, including the Bay de Chaleur. 

 My experience was that the Americans constantly endeavored to get into 

 the prohibited ground to fish. The first few weeks we commenced cruis- 

 ing we were stationed at the Gut of Causo, and we boarded all the 

 American vessels that passed through, and warned them not to fish 

 within three miles of the shore on pain of being seized and forfeited. 

 Notwithstanding that warning, they kept continually creeping in, and 

 we eventually seized the A. H. Wanson, while fishing within three miles 



