346 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



State from introducing and carrying through both branches of the legislature a section 

 of an act which permitted the use of fish-baskets, and which act was only prevented 

 from becoming a law through Governor Hastings interposing a veto. The situation 

 in Pennsylvania is practically the situation in most of the States where the fresh- 

 water fisheries are or should be large. 



The path of fish commissions is not strewn with roses. On the contrary, it is 

 beset with difficulties calculated to discourage the most ardent. An investigation of 

 the causes which produce the strained relations between the commissions and the 

 fishing interests reveals so many that to remove them all seems almost a hopeless 

 task; nor is the apparent hopelessness of the task materially lessened by the 

 conviction that many of the complaints against the methods of the commissions are 

 trivial, and that in other cases the complainants are utterly in the wrong. I believe 

 there would be a better prospect for an earlier settlement of the troubles were it not 

 for the undoubted fact that the relations between the sportsman angler, and the 

 commercial fisherman are anything but harmonious. Each seems to regard his 

 interests as paramount to those of the others. Little consideration is shown by each 

 fir the other. One charges the other with trying to ruin his business or pastime. In 

 the controversy the commissions suffer; and as long as the bickering continues, the 

 work of fish-culture must be hampered. This lack of harmony is greatly to be 

 deplored, because both the commercial and sporting fishermen confer huge benefits 

 on the States. The financial returns of the commercial fishermen are more readily 

 reckoned than those of the sportsmen, because more direct; but should those of the 

 latter be fairly gathered and tabulated, the total would be startling. There are many 

 counties in a number of the States where trout, bass, or other game fishing is 

 considered good, in whicli the people, outside the towns and large villages thereof, 

 owe the chief means of their livelihood to the visiting sportsmen. 



Putting aside the question as to which brings in the greatest financial returns in 

 the course of the year, it may be stated with positiveness that both interests arc 

 essential to the good of the State. It is the duty of fish commissions to guard and 

 further both, and I believe that as a rule they perform it to the best of their ability; 

 unfortunately, however, in the performance of this duty to its fullest extent, as they 

 see it, they are often apt to give apparent cause for grievance on the part of commer- 

 cial fishermen that the sporting interests are guarded at the expense of theirs. For 

 example, in Pennsylvania the commercial fishermen complain that they are practically 

 debarred from the unrestricted catching of certain of the commoner food-li si ics. like 

 the eel and sucker, through the severity of the laws formulated at the instance of and 

 enforced by the fish commission. In effect the laws in question forbid, under heavy 

 penalty, the use of any device whatever for the catching of fish, other than rod, hook, 

 and line, in any of the waters of the State except Lake Erie and the Susquehanna 

 and Delaware rivers. In Lake Erie pound and other nets may be used under certain 

 restrictions; and in the two streams named, seine and gill nets of a prescribed mesh 

 may be used during certain months, provided the latter be not fastened in any 

 manner; in other words, they must float with the tide or current. By this it will be 

 seen that fyke, dip, cast, and, in fact, all other forms of nets, including fish-baskets, 

 are prohibited. 



There is not the slightest doubt that a strict enforcement of this law, or the faith- 

 ful compliance with it on the part of the fishermen, together with the heavy and 



