ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 45 
with the greatest success. Fishing continues on these outer 
banks until the end of the season, when it is time for the vessels 
to engage in other branches of the fishery. 
THE FISHERMEN. 
The fishermen who take part in this fishery are usually picked 
men from the Gloucester fleet. A large portion of them are 
engaged in the mackerel fishery in the summer. me 
This fishery requires as much skill, pluck and endurance as 
the halibut fishery, and men are selected in both thése fisheries 
on account of similar qualifications. Not unfrequently the same 
crew will remain with the vessel in the summer when she is in 
the mackerel fishery. There is so much competition among 
those who desire to ship with a good skipper that very often his 
entire crew list is made out five or six months in advance. 
THE VESSELS. 
The vessels composing the winter haddock fleet are chiefly 
stanchest and swiftest of those which in summer engage in the 
mackerel and cod fisheries. The Portland fleet is made up of 
a smaller class of vessels, averaging from thirty-five to forty 
tons ; these in summer are engaged in the mackerel or shore 
fisheries. The few Swampscott ana Boston vessels which take 
part in the winter haddock fishery are marketmen and mackerel- 
men in the summer. 
The rigging of the haddock catchers is precisely similar to 
that of the halibut catchers, with the exception that very few of 
them carry gaff-topsails and riding sails. Their outfit of nautical 
instruments and charts is, as might be expect, lesscomplete. The 
larger ones, however, have every thing which belongs to the 
outfit of the halibut schooner excepting the chronometer, the 
Epitome, and the Nautical Almanac. 
Since the haddock vessels are rarely, if ever, anchored on the 
fishing grounds, their arrangement of cables and anchors is very 
different from that in the halibut and George’s fleets. They 
usually have a chain cable on their starboard side, and upon the 
port side a cable similar to that used by the George’s and hali- 
