FISH AND FISHERIES. 129 
can now only be taken in very small quantities, and without any degree 
of certainty. The evidence given by fishermen who can remember the 
large hauls of fish once taken from the beaches of North and Middle 
Harbour, Rose and Double Bay, not to speak of the flats up the Parra- 
matta River, affirms this. ; 
The fisheries of New South Wales were classified into three large 
groups by the Report of the Royal Commission, which described them 
as follows :— 
(1.) The Home grounds—comprising those lying between Cape 
» Three Points and Sydney to the North, and between Sydney 
and Wattamolle to the south. The most remote grounds 
between these limits represent tolerably well the terminal 
points for all open fishing-boats during the summer months. 
(2.) The Middle grounds—which to the north would be comprised 
between Cape Three Points and the inlet known as Cape 
Hawke—and to the South would include those lying between 
Wattamolle and Wreck Bite. These represent the present 
limits both of open-boat fishing and of supply by steam coasters 
during the winter months. 
(3.) The Outer grounds, which would embrace the grounds north 
of Cape Hawke and-south of Wreck Bight as far as the north- 
ern and southern boundaries of the Colony, or say as far as the 
Tweed River to the north and Twofold Bay to the south. 
These grounds are too far distant from a market to be avail- 
able for the supply of fresh fish, until at least some such fishing- 
vessels as those recommended later on in our Report shall 
engage in the trade. 
(1.) Zhe Home Grownds.—-Within this section the embouchure and’ 
lower waters of the river Hawkesbury, better known as Broken Bay, 
situated about 16 miles from Port Jackson Heads, has always ranked, 
and perhaps ranks still, as the most extensive und most productive of all 
our fishing stations. The beaches of Pittwater, the Hawkesbury proper, 
and Brisbane Water, present the most favourable conditions for the net 
fisherman, and the upper reaches of the river and the mud flats of its 
various tributaries, especially at the places locally known as Mullet 
Island Creek, Mooney, Mother Marr, Berowa, and Mangrove, have sup- 
plied to the Sydney market for many years past, and may under proper 
restrictions and protection long continue to supply, enormous freights of 
the choicest of our river fishes, such as black and sea bream, tarwhine, 
black-fish, whiting, flathead, tailors, garfish, and the large sea and flat- 
tailed mullet. 
Equally prolific have the outer or schnapper grounds at and near the 
mouth of this river been to the line fisherman. These are to be found 
in great variety from Cape Three Points to the South Head of Broken 
Bay. Off the North Head of the Bay, and again off Little Head, 
situated a few miles to the southward, there occur several schnapper 
grounds of high renown, which a few years ago kept as many as a dozen 
or more boats in full work for the Chinese fish-curers, who were then 
engaged in a large business on Schnapper-man’s Flat, Pittwater, but who 
have now entirely abandoned Broken Bay as a fishing station. Twenty 
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