154 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 
the fishermen have of late years come to use much longer trawls than formerly, finding it to be 
more profitable to set long strings of gear, and make but one set a day, instead of two, as was 
formerly the custom. 
On some of the banks where fishing can be carried on with equal success both night and day, 
and where there is not too strong a current and comparatively shoal water, the fishermen find it 
to their advantage to underrun their trawls, instead of hauling and setting. Captain Collins, 
above quoted, says: “Underrunning codfish ‘trawls differs entirely from hauling, insomuch, that, 
although the same results are obtained, the trawl is not hauled into the dory, but across her, coming 
in one side and going out over the other, the fish being taken off and the hooks baited as the line 
passes over the boat. The advantages of underrunning are: First, a larger amount of gear can be 
handled, or the same trawl more frequently—for instance, a trawl can be underrun three times a 
day easier than it can be hauled and set twice; second, it requires only one-half the rowing, as it 
is all baited and set when it is left, and the pull out and back, incident to setting atrawl, is dispened 
- with; third, it being always in the water, it has more time to fish. Cases have often occurred, 
where there was good fishing, that the men would keep on underrunning, and getting a load of cod 
each time, until fish enough for the day had been taken, which was sometimes as many as 75 or 
80 tubs; the fourth reason is that the dories are not ‘cluttered up’ with gear, but have more room 
to put fish in. Trawls cannot be underrun very well where there is much tide in more than 40 
fathoms, and are not often set for that purpose, excepting where cod are abundant.” 
The different methods of setting trawls for underrunring are described in another section of 
this report. 
Each dory’s crew has a station around the house for baiting their trawls which corresponds to 
the berth they set their gear in—for instance, a dory’s crew who set their trawls ahead of the vessel 
bait on the forward end of the house, those who set lines on the starboard bow or beam bait on 
the forward end of the starboard side of the house, and so on. These stations are secured by lot, 
the crews belonging to the dories on each side of the vessel drawing their respective berths for 
setting trawls as well as for their positions for baiting. Plank are secured to the sides and ends of 
the house to protect it from being injured by the knives with which the bait is cut. When the 
order is given to ‘“‘bait up,” one man from each dory goes in the hold and fills a basket with her- 
ring, squid, mackerel, or whatever kind of bait they are using, and reaches this to his dorymate, 
who empties the lot on top of the house in the berth where they stand to bait their trawls. As 
soon as the bait is cut up (a herring making from five to eight pieces) each man begins on a tub of 
trawl. The trawl is turned out onto the house near the edge, the tub set on deck (occasionally on 
the house), and as fast as the hooks are baited the line is coiled in the tub, considerable care being 
taken in placing the hooks around the edge of the tub so that they will not foul when the trawl 
is being set. Only one piece of bait is put on a hook. The operation of baiting is very quickly 
and dexterously performed, an expert being able to bait five hundred hooks in three-quarters of 
an hour or less. 
The operation of baiting consumes from an hour and a half to two hours, and is always deferred 
until after the fish are dressed and salted, unless the men are in haste to make a second set of the 
lines. 
To dress the fish requires from half an hour to fifteen or twenty hours, depending, of course, 
upon the quantity of fish taken, which may vary from one to one hundred tubs. Each tub contains 
from 600 to 800 pounds of round fish, which, when salted and kenched, would weigh from 200 to 300 
pounds. When there is a large catch the men are obliged to work all day and nearly all night. 
From 1870 to 1874, when squid were very abundant on the Grand Bank, there were instances where 
