AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 2801 



is as ancient as any other ? A. I know it is. The Indians, the Aleutian 

 Islanders, have used them. 



Q. That was not derived from us ? A. Xo. Travelers have found 

 them in use when the first white men came among them. We have 

 specimens in great number of the trawl of the native savage. Ours 

 have only been brought in within the last five or six years. I don't 

 think it is possible to fix the date of the first use of the trawl. They 

 have been traced back to such a period that there is no possibility of 

 saying that it was introduced by this man or known to that one. 



Q. What are the advantages of the method of trawl-fishing for cod ? 

 A. The alleged advantages, as far as I have heard them spoken of, are 

 the larger yield of the fishery. The same number of men in the same 

 time, and in the same locality, will catch a larger fare of fish with the 

 trawl than with hand lines. Then they require less exposure of the fish- 

 ermen. They can be set over night and left down through the day at 

 times when the weather would be too inclement for hand-line fishing. 

 Then it requires much less skillful fishermen to use the trawl than the 

 hand lines. It is merely a matter of putting on the bait and throwing 

 it overboard, and it does not require the delicate manipulation and skill 

 that the baud-line fishing does, and therefore does not call into play to 

 the same extent the functions of the practiced fisherman. 



Q. Now, are there any disadvantages connected with the use of the trawl 

 alleged or actual 1 A. There are a great many accusations brought, 

 against it. How far these are valid it is impossible for me to say. The 

 principal objection I suppose is that it tempts all kinds of fish. One 6b- 

 jection is that it takes fish that are too small size. They use a smaller 

 hook than the ordinary hand lines, and they say it takes a great many 

 unmarketable fish, which affects the supply. Then another complaint 

 is that the fish being longer in the water are liable to be destroyed by 

 the depredations of sharks, dogfish, and fish of that class. Another 

 objection is that after the fish are caught the marketable fish, owing to 

 their weight, slip off from the small hook and float away and are lost. 

 Another objection is that they catch what they call mother fish, that is 

 the parent fish, which some fishermen think should be left to reproduce 

 their kind. 



Q. If they are taken after depositing their spawn you only lose one 

 fish! A. Yes; but it is probable, judging from the testimony of fisher- 

 men, that the fish can be taken during their spawning season with a 

 trawl when they will not bite a hook. As a general thing very few will 

 bite on the ordinary line, but the trawl bait is said to be attractive 

 to them, and the fish are believed to be more likely to take the bait at 

 that time from a trawl than from a hook on an ordinary line. 



Q. Well, taking the reasons given both ways, what conclusion have 

 you come to about the use of the trawl for cod-fishing ? A. Well, it is 

 just one of the wholesale modes of capture, which it is difficult to avoid, 

 because the tendency is to centralize, to accomplish the same work by 

 less expenditure of money and of human force. 



Q. Do you think it is a case for prohibition or regulation ! A. I don't 

 see how it can be either prohibited or regulated. I hardly see. Of 

 course I have had no practical experience. I may say that -the trawl is 

 used very much less on the coast of America than on the coast of Eng- 

 land and of Europe generally, and I have failed to find anywhere in the 

 English writers or in the testimony of the British Fishery Commission 

 any complaint there such as occurs in America. There is a great corn- 

 phiiut there against what is called the beam-trawl. When they speak of 

 the trawl they don't mean what we mean. What they refer to is a trawl 

 17CF 



