THE BANK TRAWL-LINE COD FISHERY. 149 
Green Bank, until very recently, has not been resorted to for cod, but the influence of the 
halibut trawlers has carried the Gloucester trawlers thither, and it has proved to be an excellent 
ground for cod as well as halibut. The former ignorance concerning this Bank is accounted for by 
the fact of its proximity to Saint Peter’s and Grand Bank, which were so well known to be good 
that the fishermen had no disposition to leave them in search of uncertain luck elsewhere. 
The other off-shore Banks frequented by trawlers are La Have Bank and La Have Ridges, 
Brown’s Bank, Roseway Bank, and banks in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, especially that about 
Cape North, for spring fishing. All these banks, however, are of slight importance to the trawl 
fishery in comparison with those previously mentioned. 
Except upon the fishing ground off Cape North, cod trawls are rarely set at a depth exceeding 
60 or 70 fathoms, the common depth being from 25 to 45 fathoms on all the banks. At Cape North 
trawls are set at depths of from 75 to 110 fathoms. 
The general character of the trawling grounds is more fully discussed in Section IJ, on fishing 
grounds. 
2, THE FISHERMEN. 
Trawling for cod is carried on from Gloucester, Provincetown, Beverly, Hingham, and a few 
other places in Massachusetts, and from several ports in Maine. 
The crews are made up somewhat differently from those in other branches of the fishery. It 
is true that Gloucester vessels fishing on the Western Bank carry picked crews which will compare 
favorably with those in any other branches. Vessels going from Gloucester, Provincetown, and 
elsewhere on long trips to the Grand Bank carry a considerable number of inexperienced men— 
young men trained up in the shore fisheries of the British Provinces and Maine, who have not yet 
learned the routine of the vessel, and who can be hired at a low price. In setting the trawls two 
men go out in each cory, one of whom, the ‘skipper of the dory,” must be an experienced fisher- 
man, while the other, the “bowman,” needs only to possess courage and endurance and to be a 
good boatman. In fitting out vessels from Gloucester four or five men, who are sharesmen in the 
voyage, often get the vessel ready and take her down to the Canadian coast, where at some of the 
ports they hire the remainder of their crew. 
The trawling fleet has now become the training school for young fishermen, the introduction 
of the purse-seine in the mackerel fishery having broken up the practice of carrying a number of 
boys on each schooner. It is a feeling of old fishermen at Provincetown and elsewhere that the 
introduction of this element into the fishing crews has had the effect of lowering their former 
standard of intelligence and efficiency, the young men of fishing towns being unwilling to enter 
upon careers as fishermen in competition with others so much their inferiors in capacity and social 
position. This, however, is probably unavoidable, for the educated sons of the fishermen of the 
last generation would naturally feel little inclination to enter upon the laborious livelihood in which 
their fathers were engaged, even though they were not confronted by this particular objection. 
In the chapter on the characteristics of the fishermen will be found a fall discussion by Mr. H. 
L. Osborn of the routine life and the characteristics of the crew of a Gloucester trawling vessel, 
which may be regarded as fairly typical not only for this fishery, but for the other vessel fisheries 
of New England. 
3. THE VESSELS. 
The vessels used in the trawl fishery are of the largest class of fishing schooners, ranging from 
60 to 125 tons in register. There were in 1880 about 200 schooners in the American trawling fleet, 
one of them, which sailed from Beverly, being a three-master andt he largest of all. 
