42 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AXD FISHERIES. 



fifteen pounds, getting twelve out of a hundred of tliat size. That is 

 wheu they are passing back. We hav^e caught some in the nets this 

 spring that weighed teu pounds. We can catch blue-fish steadily 

 throughout the summer ; generally get some every day while they 

 are here. When we get two tides a day we get more fish. They come 

 in on the flood, and we take them wheu they are going out. We inva- 

 riably catch them on the ebb. [It was here explained that the nets are 

 set parallel to the shore.] The bait comes in-shore nights, and, I pre- 

 sume, they follow it in. They feed on herring and such like. They will 

 eat all the scup they can get. 



[The liue-fishermen denied this statement, generally agreeing that 

 they never find any pieces of scup in the blue-fish.] 



Mr. Snow. I have seen hundreds and thousands of little scup in them. 

 They will pick up a crab, and when they cannot get anything else the}' 

 will eat sand-squibs. I have found shell-fish in them, that they pick up 

 from the bottom. On the line-fishing grounds the blue-fish do not eat 

 scup, because they have spurs on them. 



[It was generally agreed that they will eat small scup, and that they 

 would drive away the scup, that run for protection into the eel-grass.] 



Mr. Andrews. I think a large one would not run away. 



Mr. Snow. I have seen the largest scup in th(^m, and even blue-fish 

 in blue-fish. I don't think they waste au}^ fish they catch. 



Mr. WiNSLOW. Nine-tenths of the blue-fish have no scup in them ; 

 but most of them have menhaden in them. There are no blue-fish here in 

 the winter. They come about the 1st of June. I think there are fewer 

 in the harbor this year than heretofore. 



Mr. Snow. We have probably two this year to one last year. 



Mr. WiNSLOW. We do not catch so many with the hook. 



Mr. Snow. We get some every day, but not so plenty as for a time 

 back. 



Question. How do you explain that there are three times as many in 

 the seines and less caught with hooks! 



Mr. WiNSLOW. Those caught in the seines are small. 



Mr. Snow. We get as great a proportion of large ones as we did last 

 year. I think blue-fish are more plenty in nets than last year. 



Mr. Andrews. That is my explanation, too — because the nets have 

 destroyed the hook-fishing. 



Mr. WiNSLOW. We used to get from two to three hundred blue-fish 

 in a day through the season. 



Question. Have the selectmen given permission to put down traps ? 



Mr. Macy. They have not refused any. 



Mr. Snow. The pounds did not do well last year, because they were 

 not rigged right. I never fished with a pound, and don't know any- 

 thing about them. Fishing with pounds is much more expensive than 

 with set or gill nets. It would cost $0,000 to put down a i)Ound at 

 Great Point. I do not think there are more than twice as many gill or 

 drift nets this year as last. There are about fifty gill-nets out belonging 

 to the peoi)le of Nantucket, and some fifteen or twenty to others, all on 

 the north side of the island. They are twenty-five to fifty fathonjs long, 

 ami from thirty to fifty meshes wide. The size of the mesh is from four 

 and one-fonith to four and one-half inches, No. 15 or No. 10 thread. 

 We get the largest blue-fish in the fall. The biggest one I ever heard 

 of weighed twenty-five })()nnds. J have seen two fish that weighed forty 

 pounds, om^. weighing eighteen and the other twenty-two. 



Gersjioh FiNNEV. I think blue-fish are more plenty this year than 



