ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
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Sa fEELEV NS 
KEANSBURG 
FISH POUNDS 
RARITAN & SANDY HOOK BAYS 
June 15,1920. 
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BULLETIN 
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MAP SHOWING LOCATION OF POUND NETS IN 1920 
POUND FISHERIES OF 
YORK BAY 
By S. A. Cauiisen 
LOWER NEW 
EW people in and about the City of New 
York, including even those who daily travel 
by boat to Red Bank or the Highlands, 
realize how large a fishing industry is carried 
on at their very threshold. 
Compton Creek, flowing into Sandy Hook Bay 
some three miles from the Highlands, furnishes 
a shallow but sufficient harbor for the fisher- 
men’s boats, and has therefore become the center 
of this activity. Despite the fact that the creek 
affords but a scant four feet of water at low 
tide, it is ideally located to form a base for the 
pound fishermen. It is near the fishing grounds 
and well protected, while its meanderings 
through salt meadows gives ample opportunity 
for spreading, mending and tarring the nets. 
The town itself, known as Belford, lies some- 
what farther inland and its trim, comfortable 
homes give proof of the size and profit of its 
trade. 
It would be well at the outset clearly to define 
pound fishing. It is, in reality, fishing by means 
of large trap nets set so as to catch the fish as 
they follow rather clearly defined lines of move- 
ment. The trap, known in its entirety as a 
pound, is composed of four distinct parts, the 
“leader,” the “big heart,” the “little heart,” and 
the “bag” or “pocket.” 
The “leader” is a ten-inch mesh net from 
three hundred and fifty to four hundred feet 
long, and ten to twenty feet deep, tarred, and 
weighted at the bottom with large stones. It is 
set in a straight line and held above high tide 
level by poles driven into the bottom at intervals 
of about twenty feet. The “big heart” is com- 
posed of two nets set opposite each other in the 
outline of a heart. The “leader” the 
notch, while the point of the “big heart’ is 
truneated so as to form the notch of the “‘little 
heart.” The nets are three-inch mesh, tarred. 
weighted with chain, and held up by poles like 
the leader. The “heart” thus formed is from 
100 to 150 feet in length from the base of 
ends in 
the notch to the opening of. the “‘little 
heart” formed by the truncated point, with 
about the same width at its widest part. 
The “little heart” is similar in construction 
and design, the notch, as stated, being formed 
by the point of the “big heart.” Its point, how- 
ever, is different, ending in a funnel that is 
carried into the center of the “pocket” or “bag.” 
The “‘little heart” is from forty to seventy feet 
in length, with about the same width. The 
“pocket” is a box of net held in place by poles, 
with either a roughly rectangular or circular out- 
line. Its lower side rests on the bottom, and it 
is pierced on the wall nearest the “little heart” 
by the funnel, which projects into the center of 
the pocket. The funnel opening is about six feet 
square and is held in place by a rope passed 
through a pulley fastened to a stake on the oppo- 
site side of the net. The pocket is made of two 
and one-eighth inch mesh tarred net, and is 
twenty-five to thirty feet deep, fifty-five feet 
