PRESENT CONDITION OF THE FISHERIES. 27 



liad a bass ruu out sixty-four fotboms of liue j one run out tlie length of 

 three lines. He weighed 48 pounds. 



Mr, Gardner Brewer : 



I have been a resident at the end of the avenue eleven years, and I 

 think the tautog and blue-fish are falling off very much. I do not think 

 fifty have been caught oft* my grounds^ this year. My friend and neigh- 

 bor, Mr. Mixter, who came here about eighteen years ago, sold his phice 

 in disgust, because he could not get fish. That was his great pleasure, 

 and he went ofi" almost in a rage. He used to scold a great deal about 

 the destruction of fish in the spring. It is really a great misfortune to 

 Newport. I used to see a dozen boats fishing off my place at a time, 

 but now they have abandoned it. I have not seen a boat there this 

 year. 



• 



Testimony of E. E. Taylor resumed: 



When I was a boy, I could catch four or five hundred scup here early in 

 the morning, and, after coming ashore and peddling them out, two for a 

 cent — and sometimes not get my pay at that price — would then go off in 

 the afternoon and catch as many more. I recollect that when the factories 

 stopped, in 1857, I think, the people were thrown out of w^ork, but they 

 could go and get fish in any quantity to live on, scup and blue-fish. 

 The poor people could go off and get as many as they wanted without 

 any trouble. Soon after the twine went into the water. The first piece 

 of twine 1 set was a mesh-net, with a two and a half inch bar — too big. 

 It would fill chuck full of scup. Then I and my brother-in-law, George 

 Crabb, went to fishing together, and got a net twelve feet deep and 

 thirteen fathoms long, and we could get as many scup as ^\e could 

 haul ,• but I suppose now you could not get half a dozen there. Then I 

 bought a $10 net 5 and then, with others, we bought a large trap. 



We have done very little in catching blue-fish. We caught more last 

 year in two weeks than all I have caught this year. It looks to me like 

 a miracle how any fish get by the traps. The coast is strung all along 

 full of twine 5 and how the fish can go eastward and get back again I do 

 not know. About the only thing that can account for it is the occa- 

 sional heavj' seas. When the w^ater is thick it keeps so off the shore 

 two miles, and the fish follow along the edge of the thick water ; that is 

 the only way that they escape. 



Question. Do you think that if all sorts of nets were abolished, fish 

 would be more plenty in three years ? 



• Answer. Yes, sir. I think that where there is one now there would 

 be a hundred in three years. 



Question. SuiJi)ose we say, ''You may fish with as many gill-nets and 

 draw-seines as you please, but not with traps," how would that be ? 



Answer. It would not make a great deal of difference. 



Question. Suppose we say "You shall not fix your nets except in the 

 tide-way P 



Answer. That would not effect any thing. We moored our gill-nets at 

 each end with anchors 5 they do not swing with the tide. We set them 

 in as still water as we can. The mackerel run with the wind, and we 

 set so that they shall strike square. 



I do not see that the blue-fish run any lower this year than last. We 

 catch them about the middle of the net. We have seventy-six meshes 

 deep, and catch them about midway. We have a 4J-inch mesh ; we 

 catch some all the way down. As a general thing, we catch them that 



