FISHERIES OF THE GREAT LAKES IN 1885. 273 



fish, returning to Loraiu after the close of the season. A few years ago 

 there was some gill-net fishing from Loraiu, but it has been discon- 

 tinued. The only other fishing in the town is for catfish with hook and 

 line through the ice in winter. One man has a set-line 3 miles long 

 with one thousand six hundred hooks. 



From Lorain to the boundary between Lorain and Cuyahoga Counties 

 the bottom is too rocky to allow the staking of pound-nets, and there is 

 no fishing of any description. 



Statistics of Lorain County. — There were 59 professional fishermen in 

 Lorain County in 1885, either fishing their own apparatus or hired for 

 monthly wages, and more than a dozen others worked occasionally by 

 the day as extra hands at the different fisheries during a heavy run of 

 fish. The value of shore property and minor apparatus was about 

 $12,000. The products of the fisheries were valued at $31,000, repre- 

 senting about 1,490,000 pounds of fresh fish and 520,000 pounds of salt 

 fish. Half of the catch in quantity was herring, one-fourth blue pike, 

 153,000 pounds saugers, 50,000 pounds whitefish, and the rest perch, 

 catfish, miscellaneous, sturgeon, wall eyed pike, bass, grass-pike, aud 

 muskellunge. 



Trade and preparation, Lorain County. — The only species salted are 

 herritig and blue pike. The fresh fish are usually sold to peddlers or to 

 the retail trade in the interior, only the surplus going to the wholesale 

 dealers, as their prices are 25 to 75 per cent, lower thau those paid by 

 retailers ; but those which are salted are shipped uuder contract to the 

 dealers at Cleveland, who furnish salt and packages and pay $1.40 per 

 barrel for the fish. The barrels are really half-barrels, containing 100 

 pouiMls each. Each fishery supplies from one to four peddlers regularly 

 throughout the fishing season. Mr. Wittmer, of Brownhelm Station, 

 estimates that there are twenty-five of these peddlers from Vermillion 

 to Detroit Bay, inclusive. 



Dover Bay. — The first fisheries east of Lorain are in Dover Bay, 15 

 miles away, within the limits of Cuyahoga County, and 12 miles west 

 of Cleveland. On accouut of the richness of the soil the region is 

 thickly settled with farmers aud grape-culturists. All of the fishing is 

 with pound-nets, of which there were thirty in 1885, set in eleven 

 strings within a strip of coast 3 miles long, beginning near the county 

 line. The shortness of the strings is made necessary by the depth of 

 the water. Some of the outside ones were from 40 to 46 feet deep, the 

 others ranging from 20 to 40 feet. They were owned by three firms of 

 farmers whose lands run down to the shore. One of them belongs at 

 Dover, one at West Dover, and one at North Dover. 



Pound-nets were first set in this bay in 1858. For some years prior 

 to that event there had been some fishing with haul-seines, but it was 

 of little importance and has since been entirely abandoned. 



There are no harbors along this shore, and the fish-boats have to be 

 hauled on the beach with a winch. 

 H. Mis. 133 18 



