AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 2437 



Q. How long did it take yon to do that? A. About 7 weeks, or prob- 

 ably rather 8 weeks. 



Q. Whereabouts were these fish taken ? A. All the way from 20 

 miles north of Hatteras to as far north as Nautucket. 



Q. Where did you go on your next trip this season ? A. Down on 

 the coast of Maine j we were a short time gone ; we could not find any 

 fish, and so we came home again. 



Q. What did you do ? A. I believe we stocked about $500 on the 

 second trip. 



Q. Did you make a third trip this year? A. Yes. 



Q. Where ? A. At Block Island. 



Q. What was your luck there? A. It was very good, considering. 



Q. How many barrels did you take ? A. 130. 



Q. What did they sell for? A. $22.50 and $23.50 a barrel. We sold 

 them at Gloucester ; they were Block Island mackerel. 



Q. What was your stock? A. I could not tell exactly, but we shared 

 $79 each, and there were 14 men. 



Q. What was the total amount all your trips this summer stocked, 

 seined on the United States coast? A. I heard it talked of at the time, 

 and I think that it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $8,000. 



Q.* That was the result of the stocking out? A. Yes; that was the 

 total stock. 



Q. When did you cease fishing this summer? A. About the 1st of 

 August. 



Q. And soon afterwards you came up in the Speedwell as pilot ? A. 

 Yes. 



Q. You have been several times in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and you 

 have fished over our own coast from Hatteras up, and I should like to 

 ask you a few questions respecting the food of the mackerel where do 

 you find it? A. We find it usually from 20 to 50 miles off the land, 

 during the early part of the season ; generally we do not then find any 

 food at the surface of the water ; so their food at this time consists of 

 shrimps and sand fleas, which we find inside of the fish. 



Q. What do you find later? A. We then find what we call red seed 

 1 do not know its proper name, but it is something that looks round 

 and red with shrimps and little small fish of different kinds. 



Q. How far out at sea have you found this food, this red stuff? A. I 

 - have seen it, I may safely say, 40 miles southeast of George's. 



Q. In what quantities ? A. I could not exactly say, because when 

 we are out that way of course, if we see any fish, we have not much 

 time to look after anything else. 



Q. Have you found it in abundance or in small quantities? A. Some 

 years it is very abundant, and more years when the mackerel ao not 

 play out that way, there probably won't be so much of it. 



Q. Where and when do the mackerel first appear on the United 

 States coast in spring? A. We first find them somewhere abreast of 

 Hatteras or a little to the northward of it 20 miles north of Hatteras. 



Q. At what date ? A. From the 20th to the 25th of April. 



Q. When are they at Cape Delaware? A. That depends upon the 

 weather ; if you have northerly and easterly winds they won't come up 

 very fast ; they will then come very slowly along the coast, but if you 

 have moderate southerly and westerly winds they will .naturally work 

 along a little faster than if it was a cold and backward spring. They 

 vary considerably in the time of their appearance. 



Q. Give us the average approximate dates when they make their ap- 

 pearance off Cape Delaware. A. It is something like fifteen days per- 



