Red Snapper 



The history of the growth of the red-snapper fishery is an inter- 

 esting one. In the late forties or early fifties some New London fisher- 

 men ventured into the Gulf of Mexico, with their small sloops such as 

 they used in the cod fisheries, none over 15 or 20 tons measurement. 

 They fell in with the red snappers off the west coast of Florida, and 

 made good catches, which they marketed at New Orleans at good 

 prices. Others were induced to leave the whirling tide-rips of the 

 Vineyard Shoals and wet a line on the Snapper Banks. Later, winter 

 voyages were made, in better and more fully equipped smacks, and 

 these for a time held a monopoly of the trade. This trade, however, 

 was local and mostly retail, in New Orleans and Mobile, and not until 

 in the early seventies was an effort made to extend the trade. This 

 was by the Pensacola Ice Company and by Warren & Stearns of Pensa- 

 cola, while the Hon. Eugene Blackford was active in introducing the 

 red snapper into the New York trade. The business grew rapidly, and 

 in 1898 there were engaged in the red-snapper fishery in the Gulf of 

 Mexico more than 40 vessels. 



At first the smacks were provided with wells in which the fish 

 could be kept alive, but now ice is used and the fish are put upon the 

 market in better condition. Pensacola is the centre of the red-snapper 

 trade. From this place the smacks make voyages to the Tortugas and 

 the Campeche banks, some 700 miles distant. 



The fish are found by continually throwing the lead when the 

 smack has, by dead reckoning, reached the vicinity of a bank. A 

 man standing on the weather-rail, supporting himself by a hold on the 

 main-shroud, swings the line, to which is attached a baited hook and 

 a 9-pound lead. He releases it as it swings under and forward, and 

 lets it swing to the bottom, and 40 fathoms depth is reached as the 

 hand of the leadsman comes over the lead, although the vessel may be 

 moving forward 3 or 4 knots an hour. 



If fish are present and hungry, they snatch at the hook, and one is 

 brought to the surface. As soon as a bite is announced, a dory, with 

 one man provided with fishing-gear, is at once launched, and if the 

 fish bite well the smack is brought back to the spot and either an- 

 chored or permitted to drift broadside across the ground. When she 

 drifts away from the fish she is again worked to windward, and the 

 same process repeated until the fish cease biting or the fare is com- 

 pleted. This process of sounding is sometimes followed all day with- 

 out success; and again, the fish are quickly found. Sometimes six 

 men will catch a thousand fish in a few hours, and at other times two 



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