Y64 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



4J to 4 inches, while in the pike-nets it is smaller, varying from to 3g. At Sackett's Harbor, 

 Lake Ontario, the size of mesh employed for different species is as follows: For ciscoes, 2 inches ; 

 pike and bass, 3 to 4 inches ; whitefish, 4i to 5 inches ; trout, 6 inches ; sturgeon, 8 to 10 inches. 



Some nets employed in Green Bay are only 4 feet deep, and some in Thunder Bay, Lake 

 Huron, 5 feet. 



In certain localities the nets are buoyed by wooden floats and weighted with stones, while in 

 other cork floats and lead weights are used. 



Many nets were formerly knit by the fishermen's wives and daughters, but now they are 

 usually made by machinery and purchased from dealers in the larger cities. At Two Rivers, Wis., 

 however, a majority of the women and children spend most of the winter in making nets for local 

 supply and for shipment to other fishing towns on Lake Michigan. Nets made of cotton twine are 

 worth about $5.50, but linen nets are valued at $2 more apiece. Cotton nets are generally em- 

 ployed. 



METHODS OP THE FISHERY. There is no season of the year in which gill-nets are not in use 

 in some part of the lakes. Summer is the least profitable season, and in some localities fishing is 

 suspended altogether during the warmest weather, which occurs usually in July. With this excep- 

 tion the regular season lasts during "open-water" time, that is, while there is no ice in the lakes. 

 Of course, the length of this season varies very considerably in different years and in different parts 

 of the lakes in the same year. In the upper lakes it opens usually in April and closes in Novem- 

 ber, while in the lower lakes fishing begins in March and ends in December. Winter fishing lasts 

 while the ice is firm. 



"Open-water" fishing is prosecuted on all the grounds mentioned in the early part of this 

 chapter, while winter fishing is confined principally to Lake Michigan, and is usually carried on 

 at the outer limit of the warm-weather grounds, or even farther from shore. 



Gill-net fishing with steam-tugs is essentially different from boat fishing. The tugs, like the 

 large sailboats, carry " heavy rigs " or many nets in contradistinction to the "light rigs" or 

 smaller number of nets carried by small boats. Tugs usually carry from two hundred and fifty to 

 four hundred nets, disposed in gangs of about forty nets each. They are set from the stern of the 

 boat while it steams slowly along, and are taken in over the bows, where rollers are arranged to 

 lessen the hardship. Nets are invariably anchored, but are frequently moved about considerably 

 by the currents. 



Some of the larger boats, as already stated, carry " heavy rigs," or from seventy five to one 

 hundred and eighty nets, but some of the smaller ones use but a score or two. The latter carry 

 two or three men. The Lake Erie tugs carry about one hundred and twenty-five nets and keep 

 three gangs of twenty-five nets each in the water at onetime. The fishermen of Grand Haven 

 always own four gangs of nets. When they go out to remove the fish, they carry a dry gang with 

 them, which they set in place of the one "lifted ;" another is left to dry in the fish-house, and the 

 fourth does service when it is impossible to dry that recently " lifted." 



The methods of the winter fishery are quite different. In Green Bay each fisherman owns 

 from twenty five to one hundred nets, which are set in gangs usually across the bay, and in deep 

 water, 60 fathoms being a favorite depth. The men have little shanties with about 7 by 12 feet 

 floor space and 6 feet high, built light and covered with canvas and mounted on iron-shod rimers. 



In working the nets holes are cut in the ice at intervals of 100 feet. A pole, with a line at- 

 tached and long enough to reach from one aperture to the next, is thrust under the ice. A net is 

 fastened to the line and the latter is then hauled in at the second hole until all the net has passed 

 under water at the first hole. This maneuvre is repeated until all the nets are set. In lifting" the 



