FRESH-HALIBUT FISHERY. 33 
till February 6. Their stock was $8,844, and each vessel averaged $128.36 net earnings. The 
remaining eight started March 2 and netted $110 each. The total stock of the fleet to April 15 
amounted to $25,106, and the average share of each man was $62.16. 
“In those days halibut comprised the principal fish caught on George’s, and the amount of 
codfish caught was small. Now it is reversed, and codfish are the most plentiful.” * 
The following additional notes on the early halibut fishery may be of interest: “¢ The schooner 
Alabama, of Gloucester, arrived at this port this morning from George’s Bank, with 140 live halibut. 
—(Gloucester Telegraph, June 16, 1841.) 
“A quick halibut trip—A subscriber informs us that in 1848 the schooner Huntress, Capt. 
Arthur Cain, made a much quicker trip than the one reported in our last issue. She left port on 
Thursday at 11 o’clock, arriving in Boston on the following Monday morning, with 330 halibut, 
having accomplished the trip in less than four days.”—-(Cape Ann Advertiser, July 6, 1866.) 
HALIBUT FISHING IN MASSACHUSETTS Bay.—The following notes on halibut fishing in Mas- 
sachusetts Bay were obtained from Captain N. E. Atwood, of Provincetown: 
Captain Atwood was the first to undertake fishing for halibut in the gully between Race 
. Point and the Middle Bank. This was in 1840, and many very large fish were taken there. On 
the first trip there were ten fishermen on the schooner. It was not good fishing weather, but they 
tried for a short time, one man getting three, one getting two and several getting one fish apiece. 
Altogether, in an hour they took 13 halibut, and finding they could fish no longer bore up and 
went to Boston, where they found they had 2,043 pounds of the largest ever seen. In 1843 they 
began setting trawls. These were 60 fathoms long and had only about a dozen hooks. The 
“scrawl-body,” or ground line, was of 6-thread manila line, such as is called worm line, not much 
larger than cod line, and the hooks were placed 4 or 5 fathoms apart on snoods 4 or 5 feet long. 
One anchor was used at the farthest end of the trawl, while the end nearest at hand was kept 
down by a heavy stone. In 1843 and 1844 Captain Atwood went in his little sloop-smack, the 
Mars, on Nantucket Shoals after halibut. There were many New London smacks there at that 
time. The New London fishermen were very careful to keep the halibut alive and handled them 
with the greatest delicacy. When they had pulled them on deck they would throw a canvas over 
them, and, lying down on them to hold them still, would carefully work the hooks out from their 
mouths and then throw them into the well. When they were fishing in a skiff they would care- 
fully reeve a rope through the gill of each fish they caught and tow them astern of the vessel until 
they were placed alive in the well. It was not convenient to do this way, so Captain Atwood 
and his men killed the halibut, as they supposed, with their clubs and threw them into the well, 
and when they came.to dress them they were all alive. Always after that, when fishing in a well- 
smack, they were in the habit of stunning the fish so that they were apparently limp, and dead, 
but found that they never failed to come to life after they had remained for a time in the water. 
Capt. Epes W. Merchant tells us that at the time of his first acquaintance with the fisheries 
of Massachusetts Bay, from 1810 to 1830, halibut were so plenty that they were considered to be 
an annoyauce. Vessels lying in the bay or on the Middle Bank, fishing for codfish, would often 
string up on a rope, at the stern, all the halibut caught on hooks and keep them there until they 
were ready to go home, in order to prevent them from annoying the fishermen again. They were 
never carried home except as a favor to friends on shore who wanted them.t They first came into 
* Fisherman’s Memorial and Record Book, 1873, p. 69. 
+At the present time, and, indeed, for many years past, halibut have generally been so scarce on the New Eng- 
land coast, more particularly in Massachusetts Bay, that the capture of one or two has been considered a sufficient : 
novelty for the fact to be chronicled in the newspapers, 
8EC V——3 
