THE MACKEREL PURSE-SEINE FISHERY. 263 
“Schooner William M. Gaffney came in here with 450 barrels of mackerel, of which 150 barrels 
were fresh on deck. The men had not been to sleep for two days and nights, and were nodding 
while putting the mackerel in the barrels. They got the mackerel all salted at four o’clock in the 
afternoon. Captain Smith then told the men to go home and rest till morning, but to be down the 
first thing after breakfast, as he wanted to get the mackerel out and go to sea in the evening. 
This they did.” 
The success of the night fishing was quite marked in the fall of 1881, as has been indicated 
above, and as the following newspaper paragraphs will show: 
“Several of the mackerel fleet have made night hauls recently, some of them securing as 
high as 200 to 300 barrels at one setting of the seine. The operations are conducted by a lookout 
stationed at the foremast-head of the vessel, who gives the orders to the boat’s crew in charge of 
the seine, as in the night-time the motions of a school of mackerel cannot be seen from the boat in 
pursuit of the fish, nor from the deck of the schooner.” 
‘‘Schooner Henry Friend took 140 wash-barrels of mackerel at one haul Sunday night Octo- 
ber 16.” 
“Schooner Phantom went out Sunday morning, and about 11 o’clock p.m. discovered a school 
of mackerel on Middle Bank, and getting her seine out secured ninety wash-barrels. The night was 
very dark, and lanterns were found necessary to conduct the seining operations and find the way 
back to the vessel.” 
In regard to the night fishing for mackerel in the fall of 1881, Captain Martin writes as follows: 
“Seven-eighths of the mackerel taken since the 10th of September have been caught in the night. 
Catching mackerel in the night is done with great difficulty. Sometimes the vessel goes away from 
the boat. There were two such cases this fall. Schooner Everett Pierce’s boat went out and set 
around a school of mackerel, and the seine was full of fish. At this time a squall of wind came and 
blew the lantern out, and the two men on board of the vessel lost sight of the boat. The men were 
in the boat from 11 o’clock at night until 5 o’clock the next morning. They were obliged to cut 
holes in the seine in order to let the mackerel go out so as to save the net, for if the mackerel died 
the seine would have been lost. The crew of the Minnehaha, of Swampscott, had a similiar expe- 
rience the same night. The darker the night the better it is for seining, since the water will ‘fire’ 
more. When watching for mackerel one man is on the mast-head. He can see a school from the 
mast-head when he could not see it from the deck of the vessel. Sometimes the fish may be seen 
from the deck, but when the men get in the seine-boat they are not able to see them. A man on 
the mast-head can see them all the time. He gives orders to the men in the boat which way it is 
best for them to go. Captain Martin, of the schooner Northern Eagle, saw a school of mackerel 
one night. ‘They could not see them plainly, so the lantern was held up, when the mackerel could 
be seen from the boat. They then set th eir seine and got 150 barrels of mackerel. When the fish 
saw the light they came nearer the surface. Sometimes when the mackerel are close to the surface 
it is not necessary to have a man on the mast-head since they may be seen from the deck and seine- 
boat. It is not very often that the mackerel come to the surface during the fall of the year. Some- 
times on a calm night in summer you can hear them rushing, but not often. Catching mackerel in 
the night is hard work. Say, for instance, you get 200 barrels a night, and perhaps it is the latter 
part of the night, it will take all day to dress and salt them, head them up, and get them below. 
Thus if another dark night follows, all of the men are on the lookout for another school. After 
looking for, perhaps, two hours, some one (most likely the man on the mast-head) gives the alarm, 
telling those on deck where the fish are. The vessel is then kept in the direction of the school, and 
as soon as they can be seen from the deck the men jump into the boat, shoving off from the vessel, 
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