590 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 
them a fire is made, generally of hard wood and smothered with saw-dust. After four to six days 
in the smoke-house, during which they may be actually exposed to smoke less than half the time, 
they are ready for sale. This is an outline of the practice of a Kennebec fisherman. The practice 
of individuals varies not a little, and the finished product is of many grades of excellence or inferi- 
ority. They are most palatable when lightly salted and smoked, but in that condition cannot be 
kept long. Selling at 40 to 80 cents per 100 and retailing at a cent apiece, they form a cheap and 
toothsome article of food, much sought for in all parts of the State. 
For barreling, alewives are “struck” with 14 bushels of salt to the barrel, without dressing or 
scaling, and after lying from four to six days they are packed closely in barrels with halfa bushel 
or more of new salt per barrel, and filled up with sweet and strong pickle. Alewives keep better 
in pickle than other fish, and are therefore exceptionally well fitted for exportation to warm cli- 
mates. Great quantities of them are exported to the West Indies and other warm countries. 
The practice of packing them without pickle has prevailed at times in some localities. 
THE SMELT (OSMERUS MORDAX). 
NATURAL HISTORY.—The smelt ascends the rivers for the double purpose of feeding and of 
depositing its spawn. On the eastern part of the coast it may be caught with hook and line in 
the harbors all through the summer season; farther west it is not to be caught until September 
or October, being probably a short distance off shore. In October it begins its advance all along 
the line, and as soon as the law permits (now October 1) the fishermen begin to set their fykes and 
bag-nets and ply their seines in the mouths of the rivers. With the first strong ice in December 
the fish are found already present in the fresh tidal parts of the rivers, and during the whole of 
the winter there are smelts to be found everywhere from the mouths of the rivers to the head of 
the tide. The smelt is a ravenous feeder at all times of the year except about the spawning time. 
At Robbinston it begins to take the hook about May 1, and continues to bite through the summer, 
autumn, and winter. 
The spawning time is in April and May, a week or two after the ice leaves the river. Phe- 
nomena observed indicate that it is extended through the greater part of both months. In several 
brooks in Bucksport the smelt spawns from May 20 to 25, but in certain brooks in Dear Isle just 
a month earlier. The eggs are adhesive, and stones, sticks, weeds, and any rubbish furnish recep- 
tacles. Sometimes they are deposited on the stony or weedy bottom of a tidal river, either in fresh 
or brackish water, and sometimes in the pure, fresh water of small brooks. 
Owing probably to over-fishing, the smelts now caught are in most rivers much smaller than 
formerly. Those of the Saco are nearly or quite the largest in the State; they are said to weigh 
from 2 pounds to 24 pounds per dozen (five or six fish tothe pound). Those taken in New Meadows 
River in weirs and seines count fourteen to the pound ; those taken by hook in the Kennebec at 
Gardiner sixteen to the pound. The smallest marketed (but not the smallest caught) from Bucks- 
port are adults 6 inches long and weigh about 1 ounce; among the larger specimens are some 
weighing 4 ounces and measuring 8 to 9 inches in length. 
MopDES OF OAPTURE.—The modes of catching smelts now or formerly employed in Maine 
comprehend the use of weirs, seines, bag-nets, gill-nets, dip-nets, and hook and line. All of these 
modes are in use at the present time except gill-nets. 
Weirs.—The weirs used for smelts are generally “ half-tide” weirs. They are built sometimes 
in a narrow cove, which they completely span, and sometimes at the head of a broad and shallow 
bay, where they receive the form of a tunnel with the apex pointing outward. At high water the 
smelts pass freely over them into the bay or river, but on the ebb-tide are intercepted by the spread- 
