FISHERIES OF THE GREAT LAKES IN 1885. 235 



others only slightly shorter. Near Port Clinton are thirty nets in a 

 single string, which extend in a northerly direction east of West Sister 

 Island a distance of 10 miles from the shore. Other stands of consid- 

 erable length, some containing seventeen nets, occur near by. 



Seine fishery. — This began in Maumee River about seventy years ago, 

 when fish were abundant, but facilities for getting the catch to mar- 

 ket were very meager. Seines were first used in the lake, off' Cedar 

 Point, in 1854. With increased advantages for transportation, the 

 fishery became important and reached its highest development during 

 the decade following 1850, when between five hundred and six hundred 

 men were engaged in seine fishing between Cedar Point and Locust 

 Point. The pound- net has gradually superseded the seine on the lake, 

 where the seine fishery now amounts to almost nothing. On the Mau- 

 mee River, however, seines are still extensively used, no less than two 

 hundred and thirty people following the fishery in 1885. Seines are 

 also employed to a small extent in Monroe County, Michigan, at Erie, 

 Buffalo, Irving, Sandusky, and on the Bass Islands. 



Gill-net fishery. — Gill nets for whitefish, trout, herring, sturgeon, pike, 

 and pickerel, saugers, etc., are fished throughout the lake, except in the 

 extreme western part. They are most numerous at Erie and Sandusky, 

 where over sixteen thousand nets were operated in 1885. 



Three forms of nets are in use, one of which, the float-and-stone variety, 

 which was the earliest kind employed, is rapidly being supplanted by 

 more modern rigged nets, with corks and rings or corks and leads. 



In the early history of the fishery small open boats were used from 

 which to operate the nets ; these were necessarily dangerous, slow-mov- 

 ing, and therefore wholly inadequate ; their employment did much to re- 

 tard the development of the fishery on the off-shore grounds where it 

 was likely to be most profitable. Within the past few years, however, 

 one dealer after another has provided himself with one or more fishing- 

 steamers with such an entirely satisfactory result that more vessels of 

 this class are being built each year, and the gill-net fishery is corre- 

 spondingly increasing. In 1885 there were forty-three steamers used in 

 tlie fisheries of Lake Erie, of which thirteen were employed simply in 

 collecting fish, while the others were fitted with fishing apparatus. 



Fyke-net fishery. — Fyke-nets are more numerous in Lake Erie than 

 in any of the other lakes, and the output of the fishery is very large 

 and valuable. The shallow waters at the western end of the lake, es- 

 pecially those of Sandusky Bay and vicinity, are well suited to this 

 kind of apparatus, and in the particular locality just named nearly a 

 thousand fykes and miniature pounds were set in 1885. 



Set-line, ice, and other fisheries. — Set-lines are extensively fished in 

 all portions of the lake. The total length of the lines in 1885 was over 

 940 miles. The species taken are chiefly catfish in the western part of 

 the lake, while at Buffalo sturgeon, pike, perch, herring, whitefish, and. 

 mullet are caught. 



