12 



FISHERIES 



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pilchards, but sprats and varions other fish are occasionally 

 taken by them. The particulur fishery with which this 

 net ia most commonly associated is that for pilchards at St 

 Ives, on the north coust of Cornwall, where seuns are 

 kept in readiness for working nn a very large scale. 

 For a long course of years St Ives Bay has been more 

 or less visited by shoals of pilchards, generally during 

 the months of October and November. These fish are 

 found in abundance off the south-west of Ireland rather 

 earlier in the year, and it appears as if the rhoals were 

 returning towards the Bay of Biscay, when they arrive on 

 the nortli coast of Cornwall in October, In their course 

 southwards some of then\ enter St Ives Bay and sweep 

 around it, and if, in doin^- so, they come within a certain 

 range of part of the shore, the seans are brought into play, 

 and large captures of fish may be made. The seaning 

 ground is on the western side of the bay, and extends 

 southwards for nearly three miles from the bar. It is 

 divided into six stations or "stems," by marks or bound- 

 aries on the land, in positions fixed by a local Act.' These 

 stems have each a name, and no fishing boats besides those 

 employed in the scan fishery are allowed to fish or anchor 

 within a certain distance of the stems between an hour 

 before sunrise and the same period after sunset from the 

 25th of July to the 25th of December; and any passing 

 boats must keep near the shore. Under favourable circura- 

 Btaaces tiie fishery is likely to be su valuable and of such 

 general advantage to the town that the Act of Parliament 

 regulating tlie proceedings is strictly carried out with the 

 approval of all concerned. For this reason also no seans 

 below a certain size are allowed to be used, so that the 

 danger of disturbing a large body of fish, and perhaps 

 frightening them into deep water without having secured 

 a good haul, may be as much as possible avoided. The 

 smallest scan of legal size at St Ives is 160 fathoms along 

 the cork-rope, with a depth of 8 fathoms at the middle or 

 bunt and 6 fathoms at the ends or wings. Some of the 

 seans are as much as 200 fathoms long, and the mesh in 

 all ia three-quarters of an inch square throughout the net. 

 The object is not to mesh the fish as in a drift-net, but to 

 inclode them. What we have described is the sean proper, 

 but there is another of smaller size and different proportions 

 which also takes pirt in the fishery. This is called a tuck- 

 sean, and is only 70 to 80 fathoms long, but it is 8 fathoms 

 at the wings and 10 fathoms in the middle or bunt. 

 Besides these there are other nets called stop-nets, which 

 are practically only additions which can be made to the 

 principal sean, and which are so used when the sean ia 

 being worked. As there are about 250 seans at St Ives, 

 and only six stations in which they can be used, some 

 arrangement is necessary to prevent confusion and inter- 

 ference, and this and other details are the subject of special 

 regulations. The seans are all registered, and many of 

 them belong to companies. Several boats are employed 

 when a sean is to be shot. The largest, called the seanboat, 

 is about 32 feet »n keel, with plenty of room for carry- 

 ing the net; she has six men for rowing and two for shoot- 

 ing the sean. Two tow-boats about 24 feet long, and each 

 carrying a stop-net, witli a crew of six men, make up the 

 working party; but besides these there is a small boat 

 called the " volyer " or " lurker," from which the master 

 seaner directs all the proceedings. The position of the 

 shoals of fish is pointed o\it by men culled " huers," who 

 are selected from the sharpest and cleverest of the fisher- 

 men. There are generally two of them on the Iiill above 

 each station, and when they see the shoals of fish, looking 

 like the shadow of a cloud on the water, they signal with a 

 large white canvas ball to the boats waiting below in the 

 ■tations. These men remain on duty for three hours at 



> 4 and e Vict. •. (7. 



a time, and receive £S a month, and one hogshead out of 

 every hundred hogsheads of fish landed. When the tilioal 

 has come within a convenient distance of one of the sta- 

 tions, the bduts containing the sean and stop-sean, which 

 have been previously joined together, commence shooting 

 the nets at the same time, the krger net being thiown out 

 in a direction parallel with the shore, «hile the stop-scan ia 

 shot in front of the shoal as the boat is ruwoil towards the 

 laud. The two boats ultimately turn towards each other, 

 and gradually bring the ends of the nets together, thus cut- 

 ting off and surrounding as many fish as taey can. The 

 second stop-net is joined to the first if thern is a probability 

 of its being wanted. The nets are then fastened together 

 at the point of meeting, and the circle gradually contracted 

 until ail the fish are inclosed by the single large sean. The 

 ends being securely joined and the stop-nets taken away, 

 the circle of netting with the inclosed pilchardu is slowly 

 hauled towards the shore, into some quiet place as much 

 as possible out of the run of the tide, till the woi^.hted foot 

 of the net touches the bottom, and there it is safely moored. 

 The fish cannot now escape, and if the haul be a largo 

 one several days may elapse before they are all taken out. 

 " Tucking" the fish is the next operation, and thii is per- 

 formed with the tuck-sean, which we described as being 

 very deep in the middla It is shot in the ordinary way 

 with one boat, but inside the other sean, and as it is hauled 

 in, the foot of the bunt is raised so as to bring the fish to 

 the surface, whence they are dipped out in large baskets 

 and put into attendant boats to be carried on sliore. This 

 is of course the exciting moment of the day, and all the 

 town is astir, and taking part in the general rejoicing. 

 Landing and carrying the fish to the curing liouses is done 

 by men termed " blowsers," who are paid in proportion to 

 the catch of fish. The seanmen receive certain wages in 

 money and a share of the fish, and every household does 

 a little curing on its own account. The great bulk of the 

 fish, however, goes into the houses of the large curers, who 

 are generally the proprietors of the seans. 



■Women are employed in the curing, wliich consists in packing 

 the pilchanls in alternate layers of conrsc salt and lish on t)ie 

 stone floor of the curing house, until the "bulk," as it ia calleil, 

 has reached a height of five ov six feet. The fish remain here a 

 month, and th( oil and brine draining from the mass are carried, 

 olf by gutters in the floor to a cistern. When tlii' iish have hcen 

 sufficiently salted they are wuslieil and packed witli the heads out- 

 wards in hogsheads, and a " rose " of fisli in the middle to keep th« 

 level. GruJuMl pressure is now applied on top of the Iish, until the 

 contents of the cusk have been reduced one-third in bulk, and a 

 large quantity of oil squeezed out ; this escapes throngh the sides 

 of the hogshead, the hoops not being at first very tightly diiven. 

 The cask is filled up three times before the pressing is finished, and 

 then, after eight or nine days, the hogslieiid of fish sliould wiigfi 

 four liundredweiKht groRS. The average number of fish in each hogs- 

 head is 2500, and sometimes as many as lOoO hogsheads have been 

 taken at one haul of the scan The largest single catch rccoidcd at 

 St Ives was 5500 hogsheads actually hiuiied, nnd on that occasion 

 great numbers of fish w ere lost besides. The fluctuation in the seiin- 

 pilchaid fishery at St Ives is very great from year to year ; nr'd it 

 wouM apiiear ri'markable, if the success of the fishery did not almost 

 entirely depend on whether or not the shoals came into that pait; 

 of the bay whore alone the seans can be used. The St Ives scnn- 

 fishery has been unsuccessful for the last four years, less tlian 

 10,000 hogsheads having been cured in each of those periods ; but 

 in the " Pilchard Circular " issued by Messrs G. C. Fox & Co. of 

 Falmouth, giving an account of the fishery season of 1877, it is said 

 that " considerable bodies of fish visited the coast, but did not con- 

 into the stems where seines might have inclosed them." ' The 



' It is difficult to suggest any satisfactory explanation of the 

 that, though large shoals of pilchards are every year observed p» 

 the north coast of Cornwall, it is only in particular years that t 

 great numbers of these fish enter St Ives Bay and come within reach 

 of the seaners. It might seem that the streams, containing draiiinga 

 from mining works, which fall into the bay, would )>ollute the water, 

 and tend to turn back the fish, but there is much less mining in tha 

 neixhbourhood now than formerly. The fisliemien's idea that the stata 

 and direction of the tide, when a shoal of fish is near the entrance to tha 

 bay, affect the couna of the shoali appaars more plausibla, for it moit 



