6 Fish, Fishing and Fisheries of Pennsylvania. 



It is by the remains of bones found in the ashes also that the great 

 size of the fish of those days, as compared with those of the present, can 

 be determined. Bones of catfish and suckers of more than double the 

 size of those now caught are frequently found, skeletons of trout, which 

 must have weighed when in the flesh from two to four pounds are quite 

 common, and there are no lack of remains of shad which would have 

 tipped the scales fairly at twelve pounds. 



As might be expected, depending so largely on this class of food sup- 

 ply, the Indians were expert fishermen. Men, women and children en- 

 gaged regularly in the calling, not only to supply immediate wants, 

 but for future supply, preserving their stock by sun and smoke curing. 

 John Ogelby, a well-known writer, in treating of the New England In- 

 dians says: "In the trade of fishing they are very expert, being expe- 

 rienced in all baits for different kinds of fishes * * * * Since the 

 English came they are furnished with English hooks and lines, for be- 

 fore they made the latter of hemp, being more curiously wrought and 

 of stronger material than ours and hooked with bone hooks * * * * 

 They make likewise very strong sturgeon nets, with which they catch 

 sturgeon of twelve feet or more in length. Their cordage is so even, soft 

 and smooth that it looks more like silk than hemp." The same skill 

 and knowledge possessed by the Indians of New England, were had by 

 those in and about the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and undoubtedly 

 both were the result of long acquaintance and practice. 



It will thus be seen that the savages who occupied the soil of America 

 before the white men, were no tyros in the art of fish catching. They 

 were learned in all that pertained to it. In the pursuit they used weirs 

 and traps; sieves, gill and scoop nets ; spears, bows and arrows and gigs; 

 hand, pole and set lines. They even knew how to stupify fish by using 

 intoxicating substances. Besides these things they constructed pens 

 and preserves in which fish could be kept alive until wanted. To the 

 children mainly were left the use of the bow and arrow in fish killing, 

 and in this art, by no means easy of acquirement, they were, according 

 to Loskiel a Moravian missionary, adepts. 



Wherever the streams were shallow, a favorite method of catching: fish 

 was by the use of drive-ways. As soon as the shad and hen-ing ap- 

 peared on their annual journey to the spawning beds no time was lost 

 by the Indians. Large stones were placed close together in the water 

 so as to make a huge V shaped pen, much after the pattern of the brush 

 built drive-ways used by them for capturing land animals. Then every 

 redskin in the village or villages, if friendly relations were in order, 

 men, women and children fell in line across the river, and moved slowly 

 towards the open end of the drive-way, yelling at the top of their voices 

 and beating the water vigorously with brush, which each were armed 

 with. Affrighted, thousands of fish fied straight to the pen built for 

 them, and when they were well within, escape was barred by a huge net 



