618 HISTOKY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



The organized fisheries are prosecuted exclusively with gill nets, winch are either floated with 

 the tide or staked across where the fish run. Skim-nets and dip nets are used at various points 

 along the river, but the product thus obtained is insignificant, and we.have no returns of it. 



No regular fisheries exist above Doctor Town, at which point four men, fishing five gill-nets, 

 take annually about 1,200 shad and 4,000 pounds of other fish. Parties from Brunswick, fishing 

 for shad to supply the local market, take 3,000 shad and 6,000 pounds of other fish. At Darien, 

 Ga., eleven men fish eleven nets. The product is 4,400 shad and 8,000 pounds of other fish, all of 

 which goes to supply the local market. 



The following summary will show how disproportionate to the magnitude of the river is the 

 importance of its fisheries : 



Number of men employed in the fisheries 49 



Arn-jimt of capital employed |^ ( 990 



Product of 1880, in pounds: 



Shad 30,100 



Sturgeon 8-*, 500 



Mixed fish 3g > ooo 



Value of product 10,123 



Fully one-half of the fish taken and sold as shad are hickory-shad (Clupea mediocris). 

 The statistics of the important sturgeon fisheries at the mouth of the river are given in the 

 chapter on the sturgeon trade of Savannah. 



4. THE SATILLAS. 



The Satillas traverse in their lower reaches an extensive region of alluvial swamp, which, by 

 levees, has been converted into productive rice-fields. Both these rivers, like the Ogeechee, take 

 their rise in the sandy belt which lies between tide-water and the Piedmont section of the South 

 Atlantic States, the result being that they are never muddy, as are the Savannah or the Peedee, 

 There are no obstructions to the ascent of fish. No organized fresh- water fisheries, however, exist 

 except for sturgeon, which are taken immediately at the mouth and a short distance up the river. 

 The product and value of the sturgeon fisheries will be given when treating of the sturgeon trade 

 of Savannah. 



5. THE OGEECHEE EIVEE. 



The Ogeechee Eiver rises in the sandy belt of Georgia. Its waters, which drain through 

 extensive swamps, are never muddy like those of the Savannah or Altamaha, nor, like them, is the 

 stream subject to sudden floods and changes of temperature, which in the Ogeechee is higher than 

 for the corresponding dates in the Savannah. This is to be explained by the fact that the former 

 rises in the tide-water belt, instead of having its sources in the mountains. 



As a result the run of shad and herring commences very early in the Ogeechee, and the fish 

 mature their spawn at an earlier period than in the Savannah. So true is this that any one at a'l 

 familiar uith shad can, on seeing them exposed in the Savannah markets, tell at a glance, judging 

 only by the degree of development, from which of these rivers they came. The run of shad be- 

 gins in the early part of January and ends about the last of March. 



The run of alewives, according to local report, begins about the 1st of March. 



Although no permanent obstructions to the ascent of fish exist in the Ogeechee, only a small 

 proportion of the fish Avhich enter the river reach spawning-grounds, being excluded by the gill- 

 nets, which are sufficient in number to almost totally block the way. To their agency must doubt- 

 less be attributed the very decided decline which has occurred in the last few years. 



