FRESH-HALIBUT FISHERY. 43 
* 
are more or less rocks, covered with reddish bryozoans. On most parts of this bank the bottom is 
generally rocky, the stones being invariably covered, to a greater or less extent, with bryozoans. | 
“For four years I useds to visit Saint Peter’s bank regularly, usually going there between 
May and September of each year. During this period (1868 to 1872) I generally made three 
trips to the Shoal Water each season, and one summer I made five trips. Occasionally it would 
take some time for us to search out the position of the halibut, but when we once found a school 
of fish we had no difficulty in getting a fare, and rarely fished longer than a week. We averaged 
about 30,000 pounds of halibut to each trip, though, of course, there was considerable variation in 
the amount taken on different voyages. We carried twelve men, all told, including myself, and 
five dories; had three hundred hooks to a trawl. 
“During the four seasons I have spoken of no other halibut catchers learned of the abundance 
of fish on the ‘Southern Shoal Water,’ or at least did not discover it until 1872. I therefore prac- 
tically had had the field to myself during this time, and did exceedingly well. After the ground 
was found out by others, and the halibut fleet began to go there, the schools of fish were soon 
broken up. One season’s fishing reduced the halibut from abundance to such scarcity that the 
‘Shoal Water’ rarely afterwards proved a profitable fishing ground. 
“In the meantime I generally used to fish on La Have Bank and the Western Bank in the 
winter, and commonly made a trip or two each fall to the ‘Eastern Shoal Water’ of the Grand 
Bank. In the summer of 1868 I made my first halibut trip to the Magdalen Islands. I made two 
trips each summer, for that and the two succeeding years, generally visiting the islands in July 
and August. I went there the fourth summer (1872), but could catch no halibut, or, at best, so 
few I was compelled to go elsewhere for fish. During the first three years I fished chiefly around 
Byron Island and on the shoal between Byron Island and the Bird Rocks, the depths varying from 
14 to 24 fathoms. The halibut we caught there were nearly all white fish, and as we obtained fares 
ranging from 25,000 to 35,000 pounds, we made profitable trips.” 
As will be seen by a perusal of the notes which follow, the grounds visited by Captain Markuson 
from 1868 to 1872, namely, La Have Bank, Western Bank, the “ Eastern Shoal Water” of the Grand 
Bank, and the grounds around the Magdalen Islands, soon became exhausted, and in place of hali- 
but being in great abundance in those localities, they are now so extremely scarce that their occur- 
rence, even in limited humbers, is looked upon as rather a remarkable event. 
11 HISTORICAL NOTES AND INCIDENTS OF THE FRESH-HALIBUT FISHERY.* 
By J. W. Co.iins. 
This chapter is based upon observations made in the course of several years’ experience in the 
Gloucester halibut fishery. I have necessarily been obliged to refer to my personal experiences, 
and this part of it should be read in connection with the appended logs of two actual voyages made 
in the years 1878 and 1879, which have been selected to show the difficulties which often are met 
with on a halibut trip, and which frequently prevent its successful issue. While the list of “big 
trips” which has been given will show one side of the business, these notes are intended not only 
to give an idea of the reverse, but to enableethe reader to comprehend under what difficult condi- 
tions this fishery is generally conducted in winter. 
I shall endeavor to give as briefly as possible an outline history of the halibut fishery (so far as 
I can do so from personal recollections and interviews with fishermen and skippers) since vessels first 
went to the Grand Bank for fresh halibut. It is my opinion that halibut are being reduced in numbers 
* All the vessels mentioned in these notes and in the logs of two trips which follow, belong to Gloucester, unless 
it is otherwise stated. 
