70 EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



some years thej are scarcCj and tbeii again yon can get any qnantity of 

 them. 



I have seen very small mackerel in Provincetown Harbor, not more 

 than two inches long, in Jnly. 



Question. What is the number of mackerel taken in pounds, com- 

 pared with those taken with the hook 1 



Answer. Not one-tenth. This year and last there have been more 

 purse-seines for mackerel than ever before. When fish are moving, 

 bound somewhere, we catch them in the pounds, when they come near 

 the shore. They follow along in here, and away they go again. 



Question. Do you suppose bound for the eastern end of the sound., to 

 come into the bay? 



Answer. Yes, sir. 



When mackerel have spawned and are in schools they will refuse the 

 hook, sometimes for a week at a time. I think they have no spawn in 

 them in July. When they are out here they are full of ripe spawn. 

 They will take the hook in tlie spring, even when they have spawn in 

 them. They run out as far as fifty miles from the shore. 



I never caught a scup out at sea. 



I do not think i)Ound-fishing is a quarter as bad as blue-fish for de- 

 stroying fish. A blue-fish will destroy a thousand fish in a day. When 

 they get into a school of menhaden you can see a stream of blood as far 

 as you can see. They go into them, and they t^U destroy the whole 

 school before they let them go. I think menliaden are more scarce than 

 they used to be. They put up the guano-factory here on account of 

 menhaden being so plenty then. Twenty-five or thirty years ago there 

 were no blue-fish, and menhaden were plenty. Only once in a while 

 were there any blue-fish then. Finally the blue-fish got so plenty they 

 drove all the menhaden out of the bay. Tliere are plenty of menhaden 

 up in the head of the harbors ; some blue-fish will go up and drive them 

 up as far as they can ; but blue-fish don't like to go up into fresh water. 



Squeteague will swallow menhaden whole. 



We did not catch any little scup last year in the pounds. Once in a 

 while we caught one of large size 5 but now we get a good many small 

 ones every morning. We let them go, all we can. 



Sharks and rays are more plenty in the early sirring; they seem to go 

 with the early fish. 



Stingarees don't come until July. 



Head of Buzzard's Bay, 



September 25, 1871. 



Potter Brightman, (lives at Westport, but was fishing near the 

 head of tlie bay :) 



lean tell you it is slim fishing; the fishing is growing worse every 

 day. There is nothing doing at Westport. Here 1 can fish every day 

 about, but there you cannot. 1 am catching tautog altogether; 1 have 

 not caught a scup since I have been here. Tliere are some boats that 

 go olf and catch a few little ones, very few. I have been oft* here fish- 

 ing for tautog, and, while catcliing that car fidl of them, could catch 

 two bushels of scuj). 1 do not see any ditt'ei'ence in the little scup this 

 year. They are caught up ; that is what makes them so scarce. The 

 traps and ])oun(ls here cntch them ; they catch more in one night than 

 all the smiK^k-men can catch in a season. Before they commenced trap- 



