202 American Fisheries Society. 



people and you take away the livelihood of thousands of 

 our citizens and destroy millions of dollars worth of prop- 

 erty. 



But we have another class or group of people who are 

 not dependent on bass or on bass fishermen for their liveli- 

 hood. I refer to our commercial fishermen or net fishermen. 

 Here also we have an industry that gives employment to 

 hundreds of people and many tons of good food to thousands 

 of people. Both industries are necessary to the prosperity 

 of many of our villages. Both are legitimate, proper, worth- 

 while and should be encouraged. The one directly brings 

 rest and health to tired bodies and fagged brains, gives a 

 new appreciation of the great outdoors, and directly and 

 indirectly gives employment to thousands of our people. 

 The other gives employment to hundreds of men, cheap and 

 healthful food to thousands of people and investment to 

 hundreds of thousands of dollars. The question arises, 

 are these two industries necessarily antagonistic to each 

 other? Are they fundamentally such that they cannot be 

 harmonized ? Many think they are. Many think it possible 

 to harmonize them. Others think it may even be possible to 

 so fit them together that they will be helpful to each other. 

 The writer is not qualified to attempt to answer these ques- 

 tions. He simply happens to be employed where these 

 questions come up from time to time, and since his work 

 deals with fish those interested in fish often seek his guid- 

 ance. In the vicinity of Cape Vincent there seems to be no 

 conflict of opinion as to the use of nets in taking non-game 

 fish except when the nets are set in the St. Lawrence River or 

 along the lake shore and its indentations. In the open 

 water of the lake a mile or more from shore there is no 

 objection to the use of nets in taking fish. It is only when 

 these nets are set along the shore, or in bays, or rivers or 

 interior lakes that objection is made and here even the net 

 fishermen concede no nets should be set whilebassarespawn- 

 ing or during the warm summer months when bass entering 

 the nets would be likely to be injured and die. The question 

 then becomes limited to their use in the early spring and late 

 fall. At Cape Vincent it centers around early spring netting 

 along the lake shore before bass spawn and that seems to be 

 the most practicable time to catch coarse or non game fish 

 such as yellow perch, pike perch, pickerel, suckers, ling, 

 sunfishes, carp, bullheads, eels, etc. Nearly every man you 

 meet has rather pronounced views as to the advantages or 

 disadvantages of spring netting of these so-called coarse 

 fish and some men on both sides are so convinced as to th^ 

 correctness of their views that they give freely of their 



