Fish, Fishing and Fisheries of Pennsylvania. 71 



a five-inch mesh hand-made net. 0. Charles &. Co., of Huron, Ohio, who 

 were fishing here, decreased size of mesh to four and one-half inches and 

 cotton-wood bark for floats. This was about 1860. About this time the 

 catch of white fish and trout was small here for some reason, and Clark 

 & Co. brought a gill net to fish at thirty feet from bottom of lake but it 

 was a failure, as the fish would not rise ; but soon the catch improved 

 again. They set trap nets in bay and caught cat fish and sturgeon. 



" At that time sturgeon were considered of no use and were taken to 

 the peninsula and buried. Thousands of them have been buried there. 

 To-day they are worth two dollars and fifty cents each. Smoked stur- 

 geon is considered fully equal to smoked halibut, and the roe is very 

 fine, making an excellent 'caviare.' Each fish yields from twelve to 

 fourteen pounds. Most of the meat is sent to Sandusky, Ohio, for curing 

 and smoking. It is worth from five to eight cents per pound for smok- 

 ing. This is mentioned here to show what an inordinately large num- 

 ber of valuable fish were thrown away as useless that are now very scarce 

 and valuable." 



Captain Jones continues, and says that in these days (about 1860) the 

 largest catch of white fish he remembers were 3,500 pounds when 

 dressed, averaging five pounds each. This was taken in one boat, three, 

 men and thirty-nine nets. This catch was sold to Buffalo parties for, 

 seven dollars per hundred. The largest white fish he ever caught was 

 fifteen and one-fourth pounds. They have frequently been caught at 

 Put-In bay weighing twenty-five pounds. 



William Terry says he began fishing in Green bay. Lake Michigan. 

 He came down to Erie about 1857 or '58. At the time he came here he 

 found them fishing for white fish and trout. The catch was about equal. 

 At one time soon after he came, R. P. Burke and himself, each with a 

 boat took forty-eight trout apiece weighing forty or fifty pounds each, 

 besides all of the white fish the boats could carry. It was an enormous 

 catch and was taken about twelve miles outside of the harbor with five 

 and one-half inch mesh, one pound of thread in each net, twelve nets to 

 a gang. They sold to a peddler named Burton one hundred dollars 

 worth of white fish and had more than half of them left. They shipped 

 eighty eight trout to a dealer in Sandusky. This was in 1859 or '60, 

 and was the largest catch he ever saw in those days. In those years 

 fish were very plentiful. At the head of the bay sturgeon were very 

 abundant, but no sale for them. When caught were buried or given to 

 farmers for manuring land. Among the fishermen were Loramer and 

 K. P. Burke, who came from Green bay, Dan. Weeks, John Dash, Sr., 

 Eobert Tuttle, William Oakum and Frederick Dunn, besides others 

 mentioned previously. "I have seen," he says, "white fish sold for one 

 cent a pound. The overplus was cured, packed and sold to grocers by 

 the hundred pounds. These were called slime fish. We also sugar- 

 cured white fish for families, this was done in the fall of the year. They 



