18 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Question. What would you suggest as the proper way of securing 

 general obedience to such a law f 



Answer. Hold the captains of the gangs responsible j either confiscate 

 their property or make a heavy penalty. 



I have had a long controversy with Tallin an about menhaden spawn- 

 ing twice a year. Every fisherman says menhaden come along full of 

 spawn in the spring, and go back in fall full of spawn. 



Question. Do you find small scup to any extent in the blue-fish that 

 are taken in any way excepting in traps ? 



Answer. It is very seldom we catch them in any other way except 

 with the gill-net. I have found blue-fish with young scup in them ; 

 when taken in gill-nets, we almost always find scup in them. Blue-fish 

 caught with a drail often vomit up the food in them. Sometimes three- 

 fourths of the food would be young scup. I have shaken them out ot 

 them within a week. Squeteague and blue-fish do that ; they will eat 

 anything that runs free. To-day I picked up one, and just took and 

 pressed on the belly of the fish, and he w^as full of them. The i)ound is 

 full of these small fish, and they get the little fish in the pound. I have 

 seen the little strij^ed smelt in them, packed in them, anc? looking like 

 a row of pencils. Sometimes they will come ashore with a lot of scup 

 in them ; and then again they will have nothing but hake and sea- 

 robint^. They will bite these off close up to the fin ; and then they will 

 come ashore with mackerel. I have seen them with small flat-fish in 

 them. I don't know as I ever found a crab in a blue-fish. I have al- 

 ways taken particular pains to know what the blue-fish feed on. Until 

 this became so extensive a watering-i)lace, I have shipped four thousand 

 Ijounds of black-fish to New York in a year. I have shipped a thou- 

 sand to fifteen hundred sugar-boxes — bought them and sold them. But 

 then the competition became so great that J[ could not afibrd to buy 

 them. What were wanted here were sold readily, and the balance were 

 sent off. The retail dealers here buy fish wherever they can get them. 

 Two buy to send to New York, in connection with what ihey sell here. 



We caught from one thousand to fifteen hundred pounds last week. 

 We found them accidentally out in Saughkonet River. They come up 

 from the bottom every night. We catch blue-fish in gill-nets more than 

 in the pounds. They destroy the nets very badly. 



I do not know as blue-fish are more plenty than last year; there have 

 been days when they cannot catch any. We are catching now full as 

 many as we did last year. We get the fish at night ; we catch the fish 

 below the middle of the net then 5 but when the fish are i)laying on the 

 top, we get them near the top of the net. We have our nets with a mesh 

 two and one-half inches to four and one-half; they are from fifty to ninety 

 fathoms long. They are made by Mr. Stowe, of Boston. 



My partner's brother went down the other day and caught twenty- 

 eight bass. If there comes a heavy sea, on the fall of the sea they can 

 get large bass, plenty of them. My partner's brother went down and 

 caught eight or nine hundred-weight, and Mr. Perry Cole and Mr. Dur- 

 kee get a great many. 



Question. Are eels scarcer than they used to be "? 



Answer. I think so. Whether the gas-works have affected them or not 

 I do not know. Six or seven years ago I was a member of the legisla- 

 ture, and I went out one morning and found a man on the steps open- 

 ing a basket of oysters, and I could smell the coal-tar in them very 

 plainly. Fourteen or fifteen years ago I kept a fish-market on Long 

 Wharf, and you could see the tarry substance rise on the water and 

 spread out while going through the bridge. We have had a thousand 



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