2790 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



Q. You landed these mackerel at Arichat ? A. Yes. 



Q. Did you afterwards take them away? A. Yes; but not until I 

 had taken to Gloucester the 214 barrels which I caught on my second 

 trip. I then returned to Arichat, took these 314 barrels on board, paid 

 charges, and came home. 



Q. Did not the lauding of these mackerel at Arichat enable you to 

 come back to the bay and take another fare? A. Well, it enabled me to 

 go back ; but the heft of the vessels went home. I got out of the mack- 

 erel on account of the smoke. 



Q. The right of so landing cargoes, or the exercise of this privilege, 

 really does enable you to make a second and third trip, as the case may 

 be? A. I think that if such landing was not practiced it would be 

 money in our pockets ; if we did not so land mackerel it would be money 

 in the owners' pockets. 



Q. Does it enable you to make extra trips, or more trips than would 

 otherwise be the case ? A. Well, I should suppose that it would give 

 us a little more time in the bay. 



Q. And more opportunity for catching fish ? A. It gives us perhaps 

 10 days more. I have made the passage from Canso home and back 

 again, and packed my mackerel, in 10 days. 



Q. But you would not put that time forward as a specimen voyage ? 

 A. No. 



Q. How long would it take ordinarily to make this passage? A. 

 Well, two weeks or fifteen days would give ample time to go and come 

 back and pack the mackerel, and fit out. 



Q. Would not a fortnight in the height of the fishing season be a very 

 important period, particularly if mackerel were then plentiful ? A. 

 Mackerel might be plentiful in bad weather. 



Q. I mean during good fishing, with all the circumstances favorable 

 for it? A. If all the circumstances were favorable, I could load one of 

 these vessels in five days. 



Q. And those five days would then be very important ? A. Yes ; in 

 five days I could fill up, if the mackerel were just as I wanted them ; but 

 it would be pretty hard to get them in that way. 



Q. Are not mackerel fish that move about the bay from place to 

 place? A. Yes. 



Q. Sometimes they go inshore and sometimes they go out ? A. Dur- 

 ing the first part of the year they go to the uor'ard, but after September 

 they move right round and come to the southward, school after school 

 that is their track, and the man who keeps the best run of the mackerel 

 gets the most of them. 



Q. Can you swear that they come southward ? A. No ; but I know 

 the way in which they are caught. Say they are on Banks Orphan and 

 Bradley, then the next thing they will be gone to North Cape, and next 

 they will perhaps be down square off East Point ; and they will go along 

 in that way. 



Q. There are no marks about mackerel by means of which they may 

 be distinguished ? A. Not a bit of it ; they may be caught off North 

 Cape day after day, and then sink, and afterward rise and sink again, 

 leaving no sight of them anywhere ; when they come up, we may get a 

 good day's work, 75 barrels or such like for perhaps two or three days ;' 

 and he who keeps the best run of their movements, will obtain the best 

 share of the fish. 



Q. The mackerel which are caught on Banks Orphan and Bradley, and 

 are afterward lost sight of, you cannot pretend to say you recognize as 

 the same fish, in the fish which afterward rise up off North Cape and 



