FRBSH-WATER MUSSELS AND MUSSEL INDUSTRIES. 53 



to fall off vnth the subsequent dragging on the bottom. These hooks are also slightly 

 weighted by a wire wrapping at the lower end of the shank, and a dip in melted solder 

 makes the entire hook less liable to untwist. Another hook, lately brought to the at- 

 tention of the public and known as the *'sanco-point" hook, has five prong^ made in 

 one piece and attached by means of a swivel to a center shaft. The tips are also glob- 

 ular to make a so-called locking device intended to prevent the escape of the captured 

 mussels. For both of these designs, it is claimed that the small mussels are not captured on 

 account of the enlarged tips, and that when the ordinary-sized mussels are once caught 

 they do not fall off the hooks, so that no injured mussels are left in the beds.^ These 

 claims remain to be effectively demonstrated; but such improvements are eminently 

 desirable and worthy of careful test, for there is no question but that the ordinary 

 crowfoot hook is distinctly injurious and that its use should be permitted only for a 

 brief time, allowing opportunity for effectively improving it or displacing it altogether 

 with other equally efficient apparatus. 



Meantime, mussel fishermen everywhere are urged to learn the use of other methods, 

 for it is evident that an injurious mode of fishing \vill not be tolerated indefinitely. The 

 shellers themselves will recognize the propriety of excluding from use, wherever it can be 

 replaced, an appliance which is actually destructive of shells that are not taken or that 

 can not be marketed when captured. Various other methods now in practical use will 

 be described in the following pages. 



DIP-NET DRAG. 



Origin of the Method. — ^The dip net, as used in shelling was invented and intro- 

 duced during the spring of 1 91 1 at Peoria, 111. It had long been known that Peoria Lake — 

 that part of the Illinois River which broadens into a lakelike expanse above the dam at 

 Peoria — contained large beds of commercial mussel shells of good quality, but previous to 

 191 1 no suitable method of taking them had been devised. The various tools and ap- 

 pliances, as the bar and crowfoot hooks, tongs, scissor forks, etc., which had been 

 operated so successfully in other mussel rivers of the Mississippi Basin and in the major 

 portion of this river, proved unsatisfactory in Peoria Lake. There was urgent need for 

 some contrivance that would collect the shells in deeper water, where practically no cur- 

 rent prevailed, and the dip net came to fill this want. 



It is not known who invented this appliance, but probably the idea developed by a 

 combination of the principles of the ordinary dip net as used in fishing and the clam rake. 

 At the present time this apparatus is used in Peoria Lake almost exclusively, none other 

 being employed, except in places where the bottom conditions are unfavorable for the 

 operation of the dip net. Within very recent years its use has extended to other parts 

 of the Illinois River and to Lake Pepin. One dip net was seen on the White River of 

 Arkansas in 191 3, but it had not been put into use. 



The dip net is simple in construction, and in operation; it is also inexpensive and 

 especially suited to those rivers and lakes which have soft mud bottoms free from 

 obstructions, such as logs and hang-ups, and where there is but little or no current. 



Description of Apparatus. — ^There appears to be no definite standard or general 

 specifications for this mechanism, and consequently there are no two alike; the black- 



o Several tests made by J. B . Southall, shell expert of the Fairport station, indicate that about 30 i>er cent of the mussels 

 catching on ordinary hooks are lost, while only about 15 per cent of the mussels catching on the Boepple hooks drop off. 



