FISHERIES OF THE GREAT LAKES IN 1885. 157 



there were six crews of two men each which made a regular business 

 of seining, and they were joined by as many more at times when fish- 

 ing was attended with particularly good success. The seines are from 

 100 to 150 feet long and 8 or 9 feet deep, and are hauled on the beach 

 by hand for the capture of minnows, eel-pouts, and young whitefish. 

 The fishing is done in the late spring, summer, and early fall, but prin- 

 cipally in the months of June and July. 



The minnows taken are used for bait and the young whitefish are 

 smoked. The eel-pouts are peddled about by the wives and children of 

 the fishermen. The average stock for the men engaged in this fishery 

 in connection with the shore set-line fishing in 1885 was $100 for each 

 crew of two men. 



Pound-net fishery. — The first pound-net fished on the shores of Mil- 

 waukee County was set in 1865. The fishery never attained any im- 

 portance and has usually been confined to Whitefish Bay, where five 

 nets were the greatest number ever operated at one time. It is stated 

 that but one pound-net crew ever made the city of Milwaukee its head- 

 quarters, owing to the unfavorable nature of the adjacent shores. 



A single crew of two men operated two nets in Whitefish Bay in the 

 summer of 1885, this constituting the extent of the fishery in that year. 



Eighty per cent, of the fish taken were whitefish, 10 per cent, were 

 herring, 5 per cent, were trout, and 5 per cent, were sturgeon, bass, and 

 perch. The value of the catch in 1884 was $1,000, and in 1885, $800. 

 A few hundred pounds were salted, and small quantities were sold fresh 

 locally, but the great bulk of the catch was shipped to Milwaukee. 



Fyke-net fishery. — Although formerly of considerable importance, this 

 fishery has of late deteriorated, chiefly on account of the polluted con- 

 dition of the water flowing from the river at the mouth of which the 

 nets were set. In 1885 a few small fykes, with 4-foot hoops, were fished 

 under the ice by meu engaged at other times in more profitable fishing. 



In 1866 an attempt was made to employ a fyke-net far out in the lake 

 at the end of a gang of gill-nets. The results were unsatisfactory, 

 owing, it is thought, to the fact that the net had no wings. There 

 seems no reason to doubt that fykes provided with wiugs and properly 

 weighted to maintain the hoops in a vertical position could be profit- 

 ably employed on all the lakes in connection with the off-shore gill-net 

 fisheries. 



Trammel-net fishery. — Three-ply nets, from 150 to 200 feet in length, 

 were used in this region at least as early as 1852, for the capture of 

 perch and pickerel. They are not known here as trammel-nets, but 

 usually as " plunk-nets " or u pocket-nets." They were set most fre- 

 quently in the Milwaukee River in a position parallel to the shore, ex- 

 cept during the run of suckers, when they were sometimes set across 

 the middle of the stream. There were scores of them operated until 

 about 1880, each fisherman owning three or four of them. In 1885 the 

 fishery had been almost entirely abandoned. 



