THE MACKEREL-HOOK FISHERY. 281 
40 barrels. In addition to this they were accustomed to carry 5 to 10 barrels of clams. Capt. 
Sylvanus Smith, of Gloucester, stated to the Halifax Commission that a vessel fitting out for a 
four months’ trip to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence would need to be supplied with 40 barrels of pogy 
bait, worth $6 a barrel, making $240, and 10 barrels of clam bait, worth $8 a barrel, making $89.* 
Colonel Low’s statement, copied from the trip-book of the schooner Oliver Eldredge, which 
sailed to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence August 5, 1875, arrived at Gloucester November 2, 1875, 
having been absent-two months and twenty-eight days, obtaining 224 barrels of mess mackerel, 
worth $1,771.83, shows that she fitted out with 55 barrels of slivered pogies, at $6.50 per barrel, 
making $357.50, and 7 barrels of clams, at $6, making $42, 
In 1867, when almost the entire mackerel fleet fished with hooks, the amount of menhaden 
bait consumed by Gloucester alone amounted, by the estimate of Mr. Joseph O. Proctor, to 6,500 
barrels, and the total consumption by the United States of mackerel bait must have exceeded 
25,000 barrels. In addition to this more than 1,000 barrels of clams were used. In 1877 another 
estimate was made of the quantity consumed by Gloucester. The purse-seiners were then in a 
large majority. The whole amount consumed by a seining vessel does not exceed 5 or 6 barrels in 
a season. Gloucester had, in 1877, about 50 ‘“mackerel-hookers,” using about 2,400 barrels of 
slivers, while the seining fleet used about 600 barrels more. The entire amount of menhaden bait 
consumed by the mackerel fleet of the United States in 1877 did not probably exceed 8,000 to 9,000 
barrels of slivers, or 24,000 to 27,000 barrels of round fish. 
The menhaden used for bait in the mackerel fisheries was formerly, when a larger quantity 
was in demand than at present, obtained to a considerable extent from Gloucester vessels fishing 
expressly for menhaden in the vicinity of Cape Ann and in the Gulf of Maine. 
Capt. F. J. Babson, of Gloucester, whose account of the bait fishery of Cape Ann is quoted 
elsewhere, states that in 1873 there were over 60,000 barrels of round menhaden taken in his 
district, while in the same year vessels belonging to the Maine Oil and Guano Association sold of 
bait 2,977 barrels; in 1874, 10,400; in 1877, 10,795. From the bait fisheries about Marblehead and 
in the vicinity of Provincetown, according to Mr. Lowry, from 1,000 to 2,000 barrels of bait were 
taken in 1873. At Chatham, from 1872 to 1877, the average catch was about 5,000 barrels. A 
large portion of all of these fish, however, was sold to the vessels engaged in the George’s Bank 
cod fishery. Considerable quantities also were obtained about Salem, and in the Merrimac River, 
a portion of which went to the mackerel fishery. 
It was the custom of many of the vessels belonging to the spring mackerel fleet to devote a 
considerable time to obtaining a supply of bait for their own use during the summer fishery. In 
addition to this quite a number of vessels were fitted out each spring to go to Seaconnet and other 
places in that vicinity for the purpose of securing cargoes of menhaden slivers to sell to the early 
fleet going to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Cape Cod vessels were accustomed to dress their bait 
in a peculiar manner. They did not sliver them in the ordinary way, but salted them down 
“round,” simply eviscerating them, cutting off the heads and the thin parts of the belly, and 
making slits in the sides. 
These vessels obtained their bait from the pound-net fishermen at various points on the coast 
of southern New England, especially in the vicinity of Seaconnet, Rhode Island, and also from 
the various fishing gangs connected with the oil and guano factories. 
In addition to the vessels which thus obtained supplies of bait for their own use, there was a 
fleet of bait vessels which annually proceeded to the same localities in the spring to obtain bait for 
* Proceedings of the Halifax Commission, 1877, Appendix L, p. 334. 
