FISHERIES OF THE GREAT LAKES IN 1885. 187 



lakes for pickerel and other species. No set-lines or herring-nets are 

 used. 



Secondary products. — About 100 barrels of oil are made annually by 

 a man who utilizes all of the offal from the gill-net fishermen. These 

 are prevented from trying out the oil themselves by the residents of 

 Frankfort, who object to the odor which arises, and the man who car- 

 ries on the work is obliged to conduct operations at quite a distance 

 from the settlement. 



65. ARAL TO GOOD HARBOR, LEELANAW COUNTY, MICHIGAN. 



General observations. — For more than twenty years this region has 

 had a scattered population, consisting principally of Scandinavians, 

 Germans, Bohemians, and Poles. There are no villages near the shore, 

 the post-office hamlets of Aral, Empire, Glen Haven, Glen Arbor/ 

 North Unity, and Good Harbor containing less than a dozen houses 

 each. 



The fisheries have been carried on to a limited extent since the first 

 settlement, but have never been very important. The pound-net fish- 

 ery is at present larger than ever before, while gill-net fishing, on the 

 other hand, has declined. These two are the only kinds of apparatus 

 which have ever been regularly fished, spears and lines being very rarely 

 used even for home supply. 



Pound- net fishery. — The first pound-net set on the mainland between 

 Frankfort and Leland was located near Glen Arbor in Sleeping Bear 

 Bay in 1863, and two years later seven pound-nets were set in Good Har- 

 bor Bay. In 1885 there were five pound-nets in Sleeping Bear Bay. 

 The nets are usually put into these waters some time in May or June, 

 and taken out about the middle or end of September, when the apparatus 

 is removed to Traverse Bay, where it is kept in till the ice forms. The 

 size of mesh varies from 2J to 5 inches in the leaders, 3 to 4 inches in 

 the hearts, and 2 J to 4J in the pots, which are about 30 feet square, and 

 from 30 to 36 feet deep. The leaders are from 412 feet to 742 feet long, 

 averaging about 544 feet. In no instance are several nets set in a string, 

 one beyond the other. Sometimes a net is made out of the remains of 

 several old ones. Two or three of the boats used in the pound-net fish- 

 ing are sail-boats and the rest are small skiffs. Usually the nets are 

 fished by the owner, who hires his assistants at $30 a month. Occa- 

 sionally they are run on shares, half of the gross catch falling to the 

 owner. 



Gill-net fishery. — Gill-net fishing has been carried on to a limited ex- 

 tent for many years, reaching its height about the year 1879 or 1880. The 

 nets ordinarily used are from 35 to 45 fathoms long and 14 to 16 meshes 

 deep, with a mesh 4J to 4£ inches. The number carried averages 

 twenty-two nets to the boat. In 1885 there was one gill-net crew at 

 Empire, one at Glen Haven, two at Glen Arbor, and two at a place 



