THE BANK TRAWL-LINE COD FISHERY. 155 
vessels caught more than a hundred tubs of cod in a single day’s fishing, and in several cases such 
fishing continued for several days. The schooner Ben: Perley Poore, of Gloucester, in one season 
found fish so abundant that the men were kept constantly at work night and day for several days 
in succession, until the vessel was entirely filled up. When the crew were heaving up the anchor 
some of the men were so fatigued that they fell asleep with their hands on the windlass-brakes. 
On an ordinary long trip to the Grand Bank a day’s catch is likely to vary from one to forty tubs 
of fish. The vessel seldom fills up from one anchorage, even if it does not go into port to bait. 
Sometimes they do not change more than five or six times, and sometimes more than fifty times, as 
they work after the fish. 
The trawl-fishermen, of course, are subjected to the same inconveniences of fog and squalls 
which have been alluded to in the chapter on the hand-line fishery. On foggy days horns are fre- 
quently blown while the dories are out, in order that they may be kept infarmed of the position of 
the vessel. The danger of loss is very much greater, however, than in the case of the hand-liners, 
because of the longer distance which the traw]-line fishermen go from their vessels in thick weather. 
But when a dory is hauling from the outer end of the trawl-line the danger of going astray is not 
so great, since the fishermen gradually draw nearer to the schooner, and they are assisted by the 
trend of the line, by which the direction of the vessel is indicated. 
“The man who ventures on a trip in a ‘trawler,” writes Mr. George H. Procter, “finds little 
of the ‘pleasing content’ described by the early voyager. For him at least there is little of romance 
in ‘the apostles’ own calling.’ Life on the Banks he finds a constant round of drudgery so long as 
he is able to make his daily rounds. He must rise early and work late in order to visit his trawls, 
remove his fish, rebait and reset the lines, and take care of the day’s catch. Tossed on the waves 
in his frail dory, at greater or less distance from his vessel, he is subject to perils unknown to the 
fisherman of the olden time. His frail boat rides like a shell upon the surface of the sea, but in 
experienced hands no description of small sea craft is safer. Yet a moment of carelessness or inat- 
tention or a-slight miscalculation may cost him his life. And a greater foe than carelessness lies 
in wait for its prey. The stealthy fog enwraps him in its folds, blinds his vision, cuts off all marks 
to guide his course, and leaves him afloat on a measureless void. Instances are on record of many 
a wearisome trip, of days and nights without food or water, spent in weary labor at the oars, at 
last to find succor from some chance vessel or by reaching a distant port; and imagination revolts 
from the contemplation of the hardships experienced, the hopes awakened and dispelled, and the 
torturing fate of the many ‘lost in the fog,’ of «whose trying experiences nothing is ever known.”* 
Each dory being manned by two fishermen, only the captain and the cook ordinarily remain 
on board. ‘ 
The dories have usually all returned from their morning’s task by 9 or 10 o’clock, but when 
fish are scarce they are back much earlier. If the vessel is setting its trawls only once a day, as 
is at present the ordinary practice on the Grand Bank, the dories do not go out again until near 
sundown, when an hour and a half or two hours’ work is sufficient for the laying out of the lines 
for the night. When the weather is rough the task is a much longer one. Capt. D. E. Collins, in 
his journal of April 9, 1879, writes: “We had 19 tubs of large fish to-day, and with such a good 
prospect we feel like making extra efforts; so, although there was a smart breeze of wind, we hove 
out the dories, and the men started to set at4p.m. It was rough enough, and some of those who 
set to leeward had all they could do to get back to the vessel. To pull alight dory nearly two 
miles against a fresh breeze and a short choppy head Sea is not child’s play, for the utmost strength 
of two men is barely sufficient to force her to windward, and though the pull continues for hours 
* Gloucester and its Fisheries, 1876, pp. 57, 58. 
