FRESH-HALIBUT FISHERY. 19 
The George’s fishermen frequently bleed their halibut by making a cut across the tail. This is 
also done to make the fish look white, but we have not known of this method ever having been 
adopted by the trawlers. The halibut are dressed and iced in the same manner as elsewhere; the 
separation of the fish caught by each man takes place after the vessel reaches port, those belonging 
to each “lot” being selected by their respective marks. The above methods of capture by hand- 
lines, which are common to the George’s cod-fishermen, who only catch halibut incidentally, have 
beeu adopted by the handliners, which, about 1876~77, engaged exclusively in the halibut fishery 
off the eastern slope of George’s Bank. 
6. THE MANNER OF DRESSING AND ICING THE HALIBUT ON THE VESSEL. 
THE GLOUCESTER METHOD.—A crew of men engaged in “dressing down” a deck of halibut are 
always clothed in “oil-skins” or rubber jacket and trousers. Five of the men—the two “cutters,” 
the two “blooders,” and the “iver”—tie their oil or rubber jacket sleeves tight around their wrists 
“with rope yarns to keep their other clothing free from the gurry and slime. And in rough weather 
(occasionally at other times) the oil-trousers’ legs are tied tightly around the boots to prevent the 
water with which the deck is often filled from wetting the feet and legs of the fishermen. Two of 
them, with sharp knives, begin to cut. Grasping the halibut by the gills with the left hand, they 
haul the fish’s head up from the deck; one quick stroke of the knife separates the gills from the 
head at the throat; another stroke severs the gills from the napes; another rips the fish down the 
belly, and two more cuts and a quick yank with the left hand take the gills and entrails out. Now 
the “blooder” grabs the halibut, and, sitting or kneeling on deck, hauls the fish toward him with 
his left’ hand, while with his right, which is bare, he pulls the ovaries or spermaries from their 
cavities and the blood from the back-bone with a quickness that would surprise a novice. Then 
the “scrub gang” takes the fishin charge. There are two gangs and three men in each. One man 
armed with two iron gaffs hooks one of these into the head of the fish and the other into its nape, 
and holds it up and open while the scrubber, with a broom specially prepared for this purpose, , 
serubs off any loose blood, slime, &c., which may be Jeft on the backbone and in the spawn cavities 
by the blooder. One man stands by with a draw-bucket full of water, and when the “scrubber” 
sings out “water” he souses it into the fish and completely rinses him out. Now the halibut is 
clean and ready to go into the hold, and directly the cry comes up from the ice-house crowd, 
“Heave down your halibut!” In obedience to this order one of the deck gang, who is generally 
known as the “idler,” takes a gaff, and hooking one fish in the head and another in the tail, as the 
case may bé, hauls them over the hatch, letting them fall down. They strike with a dull thud on 
the floor of the ice-house, where they are taken in charge by the men below and finally disposed 
of. In the ice-house there are three men hard at work. One is pounding ice with a wooden beetle 
or mallet; another, the “icer,” is in one of the pens placing the halibut in tiers and filling the 
cavities, where the entrails, gills, &c., were taken out, with fine ice. When he gets a tier prepared 
in this manner he throws some ice, with a shovel, around their heads and the sides of the pen, but 
none on top of the fish, and then begins another tier. The third man reaches him the halibut and 
ice until the pen is full enough, when the fish are covered with from 6 to 12 inches of ice, according 
to the season. A layer of pounded ice is put under the bottom tier of fish in each pen, the thick- 
ness of this layer depending somewhat on the season, more ice, of course, being i aa in summer 
than when the weather is cold. 
THE NEw LONDON METHOD.—The New London halibut catchers have a somewhat different 
method. “In the first place,” said one of them, “we leave one tier of block ice in the bottom 
of the pen, if the ice does not exceéd 8 inches in thickness. The first tier of fish is laid on 
