28 EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



weigh from 2 J x^ounds up to 7 and 8 pounds. An eiglit-pound blne-fisli 

 is rare. We caught this morning eighteen fish ; yesterday morning we 

 caught fifty. That is big. For three mornings we took nothing but 

 two little dog-fish and some butter-fish. 



We send our fish to Xew York sometimes. We open our blue-fish. I 

 do not find scup in any of them. The dog-fish that we have around 

 here feed on crabs ; sharks feed on menhaden. The heaviest shark we 

 have around here is the thresh^- ; they feed on menhaden. I saw a 

 thresher-shark kill with his tail, which was nearly eight feet long, half 

 a bushel of menhaden at one blow, and then he picked them up off from 

 the water. They come up tail first, and give about two slams, and it is 

 " good-by, John," to about half a bushel of menhaden. The body of 

 the thresher-shark is about a foot longer than the tail. 



When the blue-fish first came here and were caught, people used to 

 think they were poison. My father, who was eighty -two years old when 

 he died, said they used to catch blae-fish that weighed sixty pounds. 

 That was a long time ago. 1 can recollect when they first began to 

 catch them here ; it was about thirty-two years ago ; 1 was about ten 

 years old. My father said sheep's-head used to be caught here in great 

 abundance some forty-five or fifty years ago. I used to have to fish all 

 day to get as much money as I now do for the few fish I catch. The 

 scarcer the fish the higher the price. I have peddled striped bass about 

 the streets at four cents a pound ; now they sell at the market at from 

 seventeen to twenty cents a i^ound. 



Newport, August 3, 1871 — Evening. 



At the office of Captain Macj^, custom-house, this evening, there were 

 present several fishermen, some interested in traps, and others who fish 

 only with lines. 



Mr. Smith, an old fisherman, said scup and tautog were growing 

 more and more scarce. This, he thought, was owing to the use of 

 seines. He had not caught a scup in four years with a hook. Ten years 

 ago he could make good wages catching scup. The first of June was 

 the time he first started for fishing. When they first come in, scup 

 will not bite for about three weeks. They are full of spawn then, and 

 are going up the river. He never saw a scup spawn. Had not caught 

 a blue-fish this year; it would not pay a man to fish for them with a 

 hook. I used to catch three hundred pounds in a day. Blue-fish came 

 in here first about forty years ago. They began to grow scarce about 

 fifteen years ago. 



Mr. William Kecord. I set gill-nets myself; I set the first seven 

 years ago. It was not unusual to catch from five to eight hundred 

 l)ounds in a day. I am now setting from two hundred and fifty to three 

 hundred and fifty fathoms, instead of fifty fathoms, that I had at first. 

 Once I canght twelve or thirteen hundred weight, but generally I don't 

 think we caught over five hundred weight. I have five nets now; but 

 I don't catch as many fish as I did when I-had one net, seven years 

 ago. We fish on the beach inside of the i^oint, near Avhat we call the 

 Beach House. We set the nc^ts so as to break the tide, and therefore 

 we calculate to set inside of the i)oints of the small bays. I don't think 

 there is one fisli in a hundred that there was twenty years ago. Then 

 it took half a dozen men to keep the net clear ; now we generally 

 haul them once a day, and they are not overloaded. 



