FISHING IN THE GREAT LAKES. 



A large proportion of the inhabitants residing upon the shores of 

 Lake Superior, Michigan and Huron, are fishermen by profession, 

 earning their living, not in the manner of the disciples of Isaac 

 Walton, but by the use of 2:>ound nets. The ordinary angler when 

 he casts Lis line in these great waters looks and feels exasperatiugly 

 diminutive by the side of these wholesale fish butcheries. It has 

 been estimated that Lake Superior alone produces annually over 

 two million white-fish and trout, say nothing of the other varieties 

 taken, whicli would certainly number together another million. 



The labor and capital required in managing these fisheries is far 

 greater than is generally supposed. The " plants " are usually made 

 in deep water, sometimes to the depth of eighty or ninety feet. 

 The places selected for planting pound nets is at the edge of banks 

 or shoals where the water rapidly deepens. Here the fish rise and 

 seek the edge of the shoal in quest of small fish, on which they 

 feed. The "pot" of the net is shaped like a heart, and wings are 

 extended from the larger end of the heart, where there is an orifice 

 for the fish to enter. In groping for the edge of the bank, the fish 

 strike the wings, and, feeling along the wall of thread, they are soon 

 entrapped in the heart, and are too unwise to contrive how to 

 escape. The net is fastened to the bottom and kept in place by 

 stakes or long slim poles of tamarack or maple, often ninety or a 

 hundred feet in length. These have to be driven into the bottom 

 six to eight feet. 



These stakes are peeled and smooth, so that rings, fastened in the 

 end of the net, can run easily on them, up and down. When it is 

 desired to "lift" a catch, three or four men go out in "pound 

 boats," a craft as large as a yawl, and flat bottomed, and gradually 

 raise the edges of the heart or pot of the net. They are generally 

 rewarded with finding therein a flopping, plunging mass of trout 



