624 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



There was but a single camp for sturgeon fishing on the Edisto during the season of 1880. 

 The fish taken here are shipped to Charleston by schooner, where they are packed in ice and sent 

 to New York by steamer. The nets do not differ in any respect from those employed all along 

 the Atlantic coast in the same fishery. The number of fish taken to the net was 125. 



The statistics of the fisheries of the Edisto for 1880 are given in the following summary: 



Number of men employed 156 



Amount of capital employed $3, CIO 



Product of the fisheries: 



Shad pounds.. 90,000 



Sturgeon do 37,250 



Mixed fish do.... 125,000 



Value of the product $12,285 



9. THE SANTEE EIVEE. 



The Santee Eiver has no organized fisheries for shad or alewives. While undoubtedly a con- 

 siderable number of fish must be taken in so large a river, with its numerous tributaries draining 

 so extensive and diversified a section of country, yet the information that was obtained was so 

 indefinite as not to warrant the expenditure of the time which would have been necessarily con- 

 sumed in arriving at an approximation of the products of this river. 



Shad in considerable numbers were formerly taken at Columbia, situated at the junction of the 

 Saluda and the Broad. Indeed, in the early history of the country important shad fisheries existed 

 on the main tributaries of the rivers as far up as 150 or 200 miles above Columbia. At the present 

 time only stragglers occasionally ascend the river as high as the dam, just above Columbia. It is 

 probable that productive fisheries, both for shad and sturgeon, could be established at the mouth 

 of the Santee Eiver were it not for the fact that the markets are so inaccessible as to have deterred 

 private enterprise from attempting to develop them. 



10. THE PEDEE, SAMPIT, BLACK, AND WACCAMA EIVEES. 



All these rivers are tributaries of Winyah Bay, and their product of fish is included under the 

 statistics of Winyah Bay and its tributaries. The only fisheries prosecuted are for shad, chiefly in 

 the Waccama Eiver, and for sturgeon in that river and in Winyah Bay. The product of these 

 fisheries is concentrated at Georgetown, because the tri-weekly steamer from that point to Charles- 

 ton furnishes the only means of transportation to market. 



Fishing for shad gives employment to about sixty men, including those engaged in supplying 

 the local demand for fish, the catch of which is only estimated, as no definite imformation in regard 

 to the quantities taken could be gained. 



The sturgeon fisheries of Winyah Bay are extensive and valuable, and are prosecuted chiefly 

 by professional fishermen from the Delaware, who, later in the season, pursue the same avocation 

 on that river. On March 11, 1880, when these fisheries were visited by the agent of the U. S. Fish 

 Commission, two parties or camps were engaged in the sturgeon fishery on this bay. 



The fishing outfit for each "camp" consisted of huts for the men, a long scow with a cabin at 

 each end, one of them being used as quarters by a portion of the men ; the other, devoted to the 

 preparation of the caviare for market. The middle portion is decked over and used as a platform 

 for slaughtering and dressing the sturgeon for market. A scow was used for carrying away the 

 offal, and a 15-ton schooner transported the dressed fish from the "camps" to Georgetown. There 



