600 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



Boats are now generally employed iu removing the fish. In pleasant weather and when the tides 

 ebb very dry the use of carts does not involve unusual labor, but at the opening and closing of the 

 fishing season, in May and November, when the chilly water is high in the outer part of the weirs 

 even at lowest ebb, the work of removing the fish is most arduous. The fishermen must often- 

 times wade to their waists or above in the cold water, the carts float and knock against the walls 

 of the weirs, and the horses, half standing and half swimming, become restive and troublesome. 

 The hearts of many men would doubtless be gladdened if the tides would henceforth ebb and flow 

 at the same hours every day, and of none more than of the weir fishermen. At present they are 

 forced to be at their posts at all hours, now in broad day, now in the darkness of midnight. 



SPECIES CAPTURED. The weir fishery of the north shore of Cape Cod is practically a bluefish 

 fishery; at least it is principally upon this species that the owners depend for profits. In spring 

 and fall great quantities of mackerel, alewives, and sea-herring are taken. Many pounds of 

 flounders and eels are also caught, and in some seasons tautog, shad, and striped bass. Menhaden 

 were formerly an important factor of the catch. An occasional salmon is taken. Sometimes a 

 "delicate monster," in the form of a loggerhead, or leather turtle, or a white whale, strays into a 

 weir, and is offered at the shrine of science by the not ungenerous fisherman. An important article 

 on the products of the weir fishery of the north shore was published in the Yarmouth Register in 

 June, 1870. It is so entertaining that I may be pardoned for quoting it in full : 



"We have noticed many cart-loads of that not very inviting-looking fish known as the 'skate' 

 passing our office during the past week, and understand that the entire catch of this fish in the 

 Independent Weir has been purchased by Mr. Wilson Reyder, of Barnstable, who uses them for 

 manure. That of the Yarmouth Weir has been purchased by Mr. Enoch F. Reyder, who finds it 

 remunerative to boil them down and convert them into 'fish guano,' while the livers yield consid- 

 erable oil. The catch is large at this season of the year, as many as 7 or 8 tons being sometimes 

 taken in a single weir at a tide. More than 30 tons were taken from the Yarmouth Weir last 

 month. A visit to the interior of a fish-weir, when the ebbing of the tide has left it nearly or quite 

 dry, is interesting. More varieties of fish find their way into these 'traps' than most people 

 imagine are found so near inshore codfish, mackerel, squid (sometimes in immense numbers), 

 porgies, herring, dogfish, salmon (occasionally), bluefish, bass (generally the striped bass), skate, 

 lobster, flatfish, shad, now and then a shark, and a great variety of smaller fry, horseshoe crabs, 

 &c. Bass and bluefish are the staple catch iu the weirs off Yarmouth, though all the above 

 varieties are taken. 



"For some years past the first bluefish of the season in the Yarmouth Weir has been taken on 

 the 2d day ot June, so that now the skirmishers of this finny army are regularly looked for and 

 confidently expected at that date. From that time until the season closes this voracious fish is a 

 regular visitant, the catch varying from a dozen or two to several hundred at a tide. A 'pound,' as 

 the interior trap of a weir is called, filled with these fish, presents an exciting and animated spec- 

 tacle when the tide has ebbed so far that they are only partially covered with water. The ferocity 

 and strength of the species is then shown by their frantic efforts to avoid their certain fate, their 

 darting and snapping and fighting; and the looker-on is impressed with the idea that a company 

 of sharks would not fight more desperately than they if occasion offered. 



" Porgies are generally taken, if taken at all, in immense numbers, though their visits are not 

 frequent in our weirs. Until within a few years the weirmeu have not cared to find their pounds 

 filled with these fish, but now the case is different, as the very fact of their coming in such num- 

 bers makes them a more valuable catch, and they are used for their oil and the manufacture of 

 guano. 



