152 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



In the course of a season on the Grand Bank the vessels are accustomed to visit the Provincial 

 ports three or four times for bait, and sometimes much more frequently. These baiting trips 

 occupy, according to circumstances, from four days to three weeks, occasioning great loss of time 

 and more or less demoralization among the fishermen. One of the greatest needs of this fishery 

 is the invention of some method by which the necessary supply of bait can be obtained by the 

 bankers without interruptions of this kind. The salt which it is necessary to carry occupies so 

 large a part of the vessel's hold that there is no room for the great bulk of fresh bait which is 

 required for catching a full fare of fish. A still greater difficulty is found in the impossibility of 

 keeping bait fresh longer than from twelve to twenty-one days. 



The vessels frequenting the Western Bank also make three or four baiting trips, though 

 occasionally, when fish are very plenty, the vessel is partially filled up at one baiting, and it is 

 found more profitable to carry in the fare while it is green and weighs heavy than to get a new 

 supply of bait and return to the Bank for an additional catch of fish. 



The method of icing bait on a "salt trip" is as follows: When bait has been secured, the ice 

 is removed from the pens and taken on deck. Four or five men, with fish-forks, pick the ice up 

 fine in hogshead tubs, putting in a cake of 100 to 200 pounds at a time. Others of the crew are 

 engaged in passing the baskets of herring and fine ice to those who are icing the bait. There are 

 generally two men in the hold, one in the bait-pen and another at the hatchway. A layer of ice 

 is first put upon the floor of the pen, after which a thin layer of herring, then another layer of ice, 

 and so on, until the pen is nearly full. The whole is covered by a quantity of ice varying from six 

 inches to a foot in thickness, according to the season, the pen to be opened last having the largest 

 quantity. 



MODE OF PISHING. The Western Bank trawlers, as has already been implied, leave home in 

 February and March, and continue fishing until October, making on an average five or six trips a 

 year, while the Grand Bankers, leaving home in April, as a rule return home in August or Sep- 

 tember, having made one trip. The schooners of a smaller class fill up and return home sooner. 

 Occasionally a vessel makes two trips to the Grand Bank, but this practice is not so common as 

 in past years. The fish are now found to be scarce on the Grand Bank after the first of Septem- 

 ber, and there is often much difficulty in procuring squid for bait. Within the past year or two 

 fish have been scarce on the Western Bank in the fall months, and the trips among the Western 

 Bankers have been less. 



The routine on a trawling vessel is very different from that on a vessel fishing with hand-lines, 

 for the former never " goes to housekeeping" in the old-fashioned way. The mainsail is never 

 unbent and stowed away, but is simply furled up whenever the riding-sail is hoisted. Years ago, 

 when the trawlers rarely went to Newfoundland for bait, and depended on " shack fishing," or 

 baiting with birds and refuse fish which they obtained while lying at anchor, they were accus- 

 tomed to remain for a long time in one berth, as do the hand liners now, and then they sometimes 

 unbent their mainsails, but this custom was abandoned about 1870. Life on a trawler is much less 

 regular and monotonous than on a hand-liner. The crew of the hand-liner rests on Sunday; that 

 of a trawler seldom or never. The trawl fishermen work with all their might frequently day and 

 night until their bait is used up, and then weigh their anchors and are off for port, where they 

 have an opportunity for rest and change of scene. 



The day's work begins with breakfast, which is served at daylight or before, the first gang 

 being called out at 3 or half-past 3 in the morning in mid-summer. As soon as they can see, the 

 fishermen start out to haul their trawls, which have been set all night. From four to six dories are 

 rowed out from the vessel in different directions toward the outer ends of the trawl-lines unless the 



