FISHERIES OF THE GREAT LAKES IN 1885. 259 



Bass Island to protect it from the northern winds, is sheltered on all 

 sides and is probably the best harbor upon the whole lake. After the 

 famous naval battle near West Sister Island (about 16 miles west by 

 north from North Bass Island), in 1813, Commodore Perry "put in the 

 bay n with his fleet, and from this circumstance the harbor and island 

 have derived their names. On the west and north the coast of the 

 island is high and rocky and the lake bottom composed of mud and 

 clay ; on the east and south the coast is low and gravelly and rocks 

 take the place of clay upon the bottom. The first settler was Seth 

 Doaue, who came to the island in 1811, but it was not until between 

 1830 and 1840 that the population reached any considerable number. 

 At present there are 800 to 1,000 inhabitants. Regular lines of 

 steamers connect the island with Detroit, Toledo, Sandusky, and Cleve- 

 land, and in summer bring hundreds of excursionists to the island daily, 

 thus doubling the population during that season. The harbor is well 

 adapted for the penning of spawning fish, and the Ohio State hatchery 

 at Sandusky has been supplied with whitefish eggs from this point.* 



Pound-nets were set from this island soon after their introduction 

 into the lake. The first were used in 1852. The number of pound-nets 

 is now about forty-five, including those on the small outlying islands 

 known as Balance* Rattlesnake, and Green Islands. Many of the nets 

 are set singly; others are in strings of four to six. A number of them 

 start directly from shore, with the lines from the leader made fast to a 

 tree or some other object on the land. In the fall of 1885 there were 

 four or five steamers fishing with gill-nets from this port, besides several 

 sailboat crews. Some of the steamers were from other ports and re- 

 mained here only about a month. Some catfish are taken in summer, 

 but there is no seine or fyke-net fishing. Before 1883 very little hook- 

 and-line fishing through the ice had been done, but in the win&r of 

 1881-85 about $6,000 worth of herring, saugers, pickerel, and perch 

 were secured in this way. 



Middle Bass Island is of irregular shape and its northeast corner is 

 continued into a narrow point about a mile and a half long with a small 

 reef near its outer end. About one-third of the south side is of a high, 

 rocky nature, but, with this exception, the coast-line is low and gravelly 

 with a surrounding lake bottom of mud and clay. The first permanent 

 settlement was made in 1838, and the population at present numbers 

 500, of whom over nine-tenths are Germans. The people are intelligent 

 and prosperous. 



The first pound-net on this island was set in 1852. It was a tunnel- 

 net, similar to those now in use, and Mr. William Rehburg thinks this 

 was the first one of the kind used on Lake Erie. The number of 



* The hatchery at Sandusky was put under the control of the United States Fish 

 Commission in 1887, and in 1889 the largest fish-hatchery in the world, which will 

 hold 500,000,000 of eggs, is being built at Put-in-Bay, Congress having appropriated 

 ',000 for its erection. 



