Catching Menhaden off Montauk 



r 



" Heave it ! " yelled the captain, and in each boat 

 a sailor whose place it was worked like a steam- 

 engine, throwing the net overboard, while the 

 crews pulled with all their muscles in opposite 

 directions around a circle perhaps a hundred 

 yards in diameter, and defined by the line of cork 

 buoys left behind, which should inclose the fish. 

 In three minutes the boats were together again, 

 the net was all paid out and an enormous weight 

 of lead had been cast over, drawing after it a 

 line rove through rings along the bottom of the 

 seine. The effect, of course, was instantly to 

 pucker the bottom of the net into a purse, and 

 thus, before the bunkers had fairly apprehended 

 their danger, they were caught in a bag whose in- 

 visible folds held a cubic acre or two of water. 

 " Bunker " is one of the many so called names of 

 the fish known in books as menhaden. 



This was sport! None of the fish were to be 

 seen. Every fin of them had discreetly sunk to 

 the bottom. Whether we had caught ten or ten 

 thousand remained to be proved. Now, lifting 

 such a net is no easy job. The weight of nearly 

 ten thousand square yards of seine, alone, is im- 



