208 'rinr/i/si.r/li Ainnml Mrefnuj 



Georgian Bay for fourteen years. Balance of the time in Lake 

 Ontario. 



"I have fished in Lake Ontario ahoul thirty years for wliile- 

 iish and trout, the great majority was whitehsh, and caught at 

 Wellington Beach; they were caught very numerously with 

 seines; as many as from five thousand to ten thousand in oiu 

 haul during a night; this was in the summer time, in Jun'e and 

 July, and these were salted or sold on the ground, to dealers. 1 

 have caught as many in a season as would allow the owners of 

 the^seine for their share aliout $2,000.00, the other $2,000.00 

 would go to the fishermen ; even more than this number were 

 caught sometimes. Fishing was carried on in the fall of the 

 year also. Whitefish were thick also everywhere in Lake On- 

 tario at that time. I have known as many as 90,000 to be taken 

 in one haul in one night; I was present and saw them counted. 

 I have often known of from o,300 to 10,000 being taken, and 

 have taken 40,000 myself in a seine several times. This was in 

 July, at Wellington Beach. Those that were saved of the 90,000 

 haul were salted ; many of these were lost because they could not 

 be taken care of. There was another haul as large as this taken 

 at West Lake Beach ; the net was a one hundred and seventy-five 

 rod seine and it was then called, 'the sou-wester'. When I left 

 Lake Ontario some fourteen years ago, there were no whitefish 

 to be had by the fishermen where these great hauls had been 

 made before, in fact the whitefish fishery had ceased to exist, 

 there was no more of it. I left Lake Ontario to fish here, and a 

 number of other fishermen also left there for the same cause." 



You know of the horrible destruction that took place about 

 the time that he is speaking of, here in the Detroit Elver, where 

 on the Canadian side we had pens constructed and where im- 

 inense desti'uction was caused to the fish. 



