PRESENT CONDITION OF THE FISHERIES. 71 



l^ing' I could come up here and catch enough to get ready to go home 

 again in ten days. The fish grow scarcer every year. 



Question. How are you going to remedy it ? 



Answer. I woukl stop the trapping j that would remedy it. I would 

 A^ote to stop trapping pretty quick. 



Six or seven smacks used to come u}:) here, and every one get a load ; 

 now nobody has got a load for a long time. There would be as many 

 again fishing with hook and line if it were not for the traps. 



There are no traps about Westport ; they had one, but the head man 

 was accidentally shot, and it was stopped; and since then there have 

 not been any traps set there. 



Soon after they began to trap at Wood's Hole fish began to grow 

 scarce. In one night they caught 200 barrels of tautog; and not only 

 that, but they take them as spawning fish. 



Fish will not bite when full of spawn. I have seen two bushels in a 

 heap all throwing out their spawn. Then you cannot get a fish to touch 

 your hook. I have seen as many as twenty-five large fish doing that- 

 They look as though they were all in a snarl, coming right up under 

 your boat. Sometimes you will see a pair together. I have seen them 

 shoot their spawn. They will not bite then, and you cannot do any- 

 thing with them. 



They spawn anywhere, where they happen to be. I have never seen 

 scui^ spawning. 



Tautog spawn the last of May or first of June. 



Blue-fish have been pretty plenty the latter part of the season ; the 

 first part they were scarce ; most of the time less than last year, and 

 very small. 



I never saw them spawning; and I don't know as I have taken them 

 with spawn in them ; I don't know a great deal about that kind offish ; 

 I follow tautoging. 



I have caught 2,400 tautog in a daj', Avith the help of one man. But 

 I have not made a living by fishing this summer. I have done the 

 slimmest that I have ever done since I have run a smack. I went out 

 with another man, and fished all the forenoon, and both of us got about 

 twenty-five pounds. 



The largest tatitog I ever caught weighed fourteen pounds. Eock- 

 bass are very scarce ; I have not caught but one since I have been here. 

 I used to catch a great many here. In fishing for tautog, while I got a 

 hundred weight of them I would catch fifty to seventy-five i^ounds of 

 bass. I believe I did not catch one this spring. 



I do not know where squeteague spawn. They are more plenty than 

 they used to be for a good many years. Forty years ago they were more 

 plenty. 



I remember when there were no blue-fish around. 



If the traps were stopped tlie fish would come back again in half a 

 dozen years. 



There are very few hook-fishermen now. Most of them have given it 

 np because they cannot make a living. 



Question. When they caught fish in old times where did they market 

 them t 



Answer. In New York. I think it is twenty years since they have 

 sent fish to Xew York. 



They first begun to set traps at Watch Hill, and then at Saughkonet. 



I came up with a man about a week ago, and we have caught about 

 seven hundred pounds. We have fished ever day — two of us. 



