FISHERMEN'S OWN BOOK. 257 



The Mackerel Pocket, or "Spiller," 



Among the improvements in fishing apparatus there are none, perhaps, 

 that appear to be more important than one patented by H. E. Willard, of 

 Portland, Me. — an article long needed in the mackerel seine fishery, and 

 which has received from the fishermen the name of " Mackerel Pocket," or 

 "Spiller." It was first used by the patentee in 1878, and Capt. George 

 Merchant, Jr., of this city, subsequently invented and put into practical 

 operation an improved "spiller." 



The apparatus is a large net bag, 36 feet long, 15 feet wide and 30 feet 

 deep. It is made of stout, coarse twine, and is attached to the side of the 

 vessel, where it is kept in position, when in use, by wooden poles or " out- 

 riggers," which extend out a distance of fifteen feet from the schooner's 

 rail. When distended in this manner a spiller will hold over 200 barrels 

 of mackerel, which can thus be kept alive, as in the well of a smack, until 

 the crew have time to cure their catch. As is well known, it frequently 

 happens that several hundred barrels of mackerel are taken at a single haul. 

 Heretofore, when such a large quantity of fish were caught, but a compar- 

 atively small portion of them could be cured by the crew of the vessel to 

 which the seine belonged. The result was that when a large catch was 

 made, a considerable percentage of the fish were generally "given away" to 

 some other vessel, since if only a part of them were removed from the seine 

 to the vessel's deck, the remainder being left in the net until the first lot 

 were cured, the chances were nine to one that the fine twine of which the 

 purse-seines are made would be bitten in many places by the swarming dog- 

 fish. In addition to the injury of the net, the inclosed body of fish were 

 thus allowed to escape, robbing the fisherman of a large portion of the fruit 

 of his labors. 



The spiller being made of coarse twine, though not entirely exempt from 

 the ravages of the dogfish and sharks, is rarely injured by them. And now 

 when a large school of mackerel are caught in a seine, the fish are turned 

 into the bag, from which they are bailed out on the schooner's deck only as 

 fast as they can be dressed, and in this way it frequently happens that a full 

 fare may now be secured from a single set of the seine. 



