116 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES 



way traverses the shores, and all the important towns have express 

 and telegraphic connections. 



Oconto, — Oconto, the county seat, is on Green Bay, at the mouth of 

 the river. It is one of the principal lumber manufacturing towns of the 

 State, and has also flour-mills, wagon-factories, aud foundries. It has 

 a population of 4,500, of whom at least 200 are dependent on the fish- 

 eries. There are about 15 pound-net crews and 14 crews of winter gill- 

 net fishermen, many of the men taking part in both fisheries. 



Pensaukee.— Peusaukee is 6 miles south of Oconto, at the mouth of the 

 Pensaukee River. It has large shipments of shingles, posts, ties, baled 

 sawdust, and other products of the lumber industry, aud is the home 

 of 4 crews of fishermen who give their principal attention to pound- 

 nets, but operate gill-nets, fykes, or seines during their intervals of 

 leisure. 



Little Suamico. — Little Suamico, on the Little Suamico River, is the 

 location of a number of large saw-mills and is an important shipping 

 point for grain. It has a population of 600, nearly oue-eighth of whom 

 are dependent upon the fisheries. There are four pound-net crews, 

 and a little seine, fyke-net, and gill-net fishing. 



The pound-net fishery is by far the most important of the fishing in- 

 dustries of the county. It is carried on, with a few weeks intermission 

 in summer, throughout the period of open water. In the winter months 

 mauy of the pound-net fishermen and some others fish through the ice 

 with gill-nets for whitefish and herring. The fyke-net and seine fish- 

 ing is of small extent, and in most cases only incidental to the pound- 

 net fisheries. 



Between 1876 and 1881 two tugs were used at Little Suamico in tend- 

 ing pound-nets. No tugs have ever been used in gill-net fishing from 

 Oconto County, and at present none are employed in the fisheries for 

 any purpose. No set-lines, trammel-nets, or sturgeon gill-nets are used. 



Species. — The principal species taken are herring, perch, suckers, and 

 sturgeon. Up to about 1876 all the fishing was for whitefish. In 

 1863 1,100 packages, nearly all whitefish, were obtained from four 

 pound-nets. In 1875 two men with sixty nets caught 10£ tons of white- 

 fish in fifty days, but between the latter date and 1881 the species de- 

 creased in abundance until it became an insignificant element in the 

 catch. This catastrophe is attributed by the fishermen to overfishing. 

 While the whitefish and the pike have been disappearing the perch 

 have become enormously more abundant. Before 1882 only a few scat- 

 tering ones were obtained, averaging about six to each lift of the pound- 

 net. Since then they have become more and more numerous each year, 

 until in the spring of 1885 never less than 50 pounds and sometimes 

 as much as a ton of them were taken at a lift. The sturgeon are 

 prepared for shipment by removing the entrails aud cutting off the 

 heads, collar-bones, and tails. In that condition they average about 



