FISHERIES OF THE GREAT LAKES IN 1885. 247 



of 150,000 pounds of catfish, worth 1J cents a pound, round, and 24,000 

 pounds of mud-turtles at 2 cents a pound. 



Winter spear -fishery. — For from oue to three months in winter twenty- 

 five to thirty men engage in spearing pickerel through the ice near 

 the breakwater south of Monroe light-house. Some of them do so simply 

 for amusement, or to supply their own families, but about half the 

 number make it a business. Each of the fishermen takes with him a 

 shanty, sometimes on runners, a spear and a decoy fish, and occa- 

 sionally a small stove. The catch, which is nearly all pickerel, is dis- 

 posed of in Monroe or sold to peddlers at an average price of 6 cents per 

 pound. The average value of the outfits of these fishermen in 1885 was 

 $15, and the average value of the catch was $2 per day to each man. 



87. MAUMEE BAY AND RIVER, LUCAS COUNTY, OHIO. 



General characteristics. — Lucas County extends along the south side 

 of Lake Erie at its extreme western end for about 25 miles, and includes 

 most of Maumee Bay and the lower portion of the river of the same 

 name. A long arm of the bay extends northward into Monroe County, 

 Michigan, but as the fisheries there are carried on from the Maumee 

 Eiver, and are naturally included in the present section, they were 

 omitted from the statistics of Monroe County. There are no settlements 

 on the lake shore of Lucas County, but the important commercial city 

 of Toledo is situated on the left bank of Maumee River, 5 miles from 

 its mouth, and there are several suburban villages within a few miles 

 north and south of the city. 



The fisheries of Toledo are important, and the fish trade especially 

 so, as the dealers here handle nearly five-sixths of the entire production 

 of the fisheries between Detroit Eiver and Touissant Creek. 



Fishermen. — Most of the fishermen of the Maumee River live in Toledo 

 or still higher up the river at the villages of South Toledo and Perrys- 

 burgh. Of the Maumee Bay fishermen about three-fourths live at North 

 Toledo and Ironville, between the city and the bay. A third part of 

 the population of these two villages is directly or indirectly dependent 

 upon the fisheries. The fishermen are chiefly Americans, or of French- 

 Canadian or German extraction, and they are generally intelligent and 

 industrious. 



Wages. — The wages paid to the fishermen are $25 per month, with 

 board, to new hands; $35 to $50, with board, to trained fishermen; and 

 $60 to $80, with board, to foremen. 



Apparatus. — The apparatus used are pound nets, seines, fykes, and 

 set-lines, of which the first named are employed to a much greater ex- 

 tent than any other. The pound-nets are set all along the shores of the 

 bay and lake and in the mouth of the river; the fyke-net fishing is in 

 the northern arm of the bay, and the seining-grounds are in the river 

 above Toledo. There is considerable set-line fishing for catfish between 

 Bay Point and Locust Poiut. The nets used are made by Eastern manu- 



