FISHERIES OF THE GREAT LAKES IN 1885. 137 



which measurements were taken the dimensions of the door were 5 by 

 2 feet, and the wings were each 83 feet long. There were two hoops 

 about 4 feet in diameter, and one 3-J feet, with a wooden ring 1 foot in 

 diameter at the inner end of the tunnel. The mesh was 4^ inches in the 

 wings and 2 J inches in the body of the trap. The other fyke-nets are 

 of different sizes, some smaller than the above and some much larger. 

 The fishery is of very little importance, and in the summer and fall of 

 1885 no more than four of the nets were used. Two of the fyke-net 

 crews from Little Sturgeon fish during a portion of the year from Hat 

 Island off Egg Harbor. The catch consists exclusively of bass and 

 perch, and amounted to 1,900 pounds, valued at $95. 



Hand-line and set-line fisheries.— North of Sister Bay, on the Green 

 Bay side of the peninsula, and north of Newport on the Lake Michigan 

 side, there is no fishery of any kind except that with hand-lines for 

 trout in winter. At Ellison's Bay both pound-nets and gill-nets have 

 been tried, but without success, and none have been used since 1879. 

 The line fishing has been practised since 1857 and up to 1875 gave em- 

 ployment to about eighty men every winter, half of whom came from 

 other localities, some even from Milwaukee. Of late years the number 

 coming from other places has been decreasing, and in the beginning 

 of 1885 there were not over forty persons engaged in the fishery, all of 

 these coming from the northern portion of the Green Bay peninsula, 

 between Fish Creek and the Door. They are of many different nation- 

 alities, though the Scandinavian element predominates. Most of them 

 are farmers, sailors, or lumbermen, who engage in fishing in a semi- 

 professional way. Each has three or four lines and a sled to carry his 

 outfit and catch, with a sail which he uses to keep off the wind while 

 fishing. The fishing is carried on as long as the ice is sufficiently strong 

 to allow it, the season generally extending from the beginning of Janu- 

 ary to the middle of March. The fish were formerly bought by several 

 dealers, who came over the ice with their teams from various directions, 

 but in 1885 almost the entire trade was controlled by establishments at 

 Green Bay and Sturgeon Bay, which, in the winter of 1884-'85, paid the 

 men an average of 5 cents a pound for their fish. During that season 

 the average catch per man was estimated at from $75 to $100 in value. 

 The yield of this fishery was 68,000 pounds of trout, which brought 

 the fishermen $3,400 in 1885. 



The only set-line fishing along the shore under discussion was by the 

 pound-net fishermen at Horseshoe Bay, who employed forty lines with 

 fifty hooks each for trout during two months in the spring just after 

 the ice broke up and during the last four or five weeks of open water 

 in the fall. The catch amounted to only 5,000 pounds in 1885, which 

 sold for $250. 



Spear fishery . — In the vicinity of Fish Creek a few men spear trout 

 through the ice. Their catch is sold on the fishing grounds to the 

 dealers' teams at about 7 cents a pound. In 1885 there were eight men 

 spear fishing, five of whom were employed during part of the year 



