FISHERIES OF THE GREAT LAKES IN 1885. 297 



but has never been as important as id the other lakes. The earliest 

 fishermen used seines where the shores were suitable, and these are 

 still employed in considerable numbers in Mexico Bay, and at several 

 other points. The principal fisheries, however, at the present time are 

 carried on with gill-nets, trap nets, fyke-nets, and set-lines. 



The following account of the history of the fisheries of Lake Ontario 

 is taken from the Syracuse Herald for July 5, 1885: 



The business of fishing as a means of livelihood along the shores of the great lake 

 and the St. Lawrence River, especially in the American waters, is rapidly decaying 

 and in a few years will have passed into the countless and unwritten traditious for 

 which the rocky bluffs and swampy lowlands forming their shores have a peculiar 

 charm. From the time when the Mohawks and the Hurous located their fishing- 

 grounds on the great waters and there sought the finny tribes until the more civilized 

 but less far-seeing white men first dropped their miles of meshes into the lake, these 

 waters were supposed to contain an inexhaustible supply of fish. But time has proven 

 otherwise. While the direct shore-linos of the lake and the river are sterile and rock- 

 bound, yet a few miles back are found some of the best and richest farming lands in 

 the State. This fact, together with the location of trading posts and barracks at 

 convenient points at an early time in colonial history, naturally led to a settlement 

 of the contiguous country, and in proportion to the increase of population in the in- 

 terior, with its increasing demand, the fish business sprang into considerable dimen- 

 sions, and hundreds of families were supported by it. In this connection arise tales 

 of toil, privation, and hardship, of loss of life and property by wind and wave fully 

 equal to those sung by the poet of the fishermen on the " Banks," or of those stories 

 from the capes of New England, so gracefully perpetuated by a writer in a recent 

 and well-known publication. This history of the northern border still remains un- 

 touched by the scholar's pen, and affords an ample field for efforts in this direction. 



As the demand grew beyond the supply capital stepped in. Immense concerns, 

 with fleets of boats, hundreds of miles of nets, and thousands of men were soon at 

 work, and even railroads were taxed to carry the products of their labor. For five 

 or six years fishermen coined money. Then came the inevitable reaction. Fish be- 

 came scarcer, sportsmen began to appreciate the grounds nature had selected for 

 them, the game fish suddenly came under the protection of stringent laws, waters 

 always the best for fishermen were freed from nets, and net fishing there was forever 

 proscribed. Steam came into use and Canada became a formidable rival, her grounds 

 yielding more and finer fish. Weaker concerns closed their doors, stronger ones 

 branched farther out, once lively towns became dead and musty, nets rotted on the 

 drying- wheels, and idle sails flapped lazily on the masts in the harbors. Then sprang 

 up the profession which stepped into the vacancy and brought with it new life and 

 courage. This was the trade of the guide or oarsman. The tourist came ; magnifi- 

 cent hotels were erected ; the St. Lawrenc River skiffs became noted ; the old fisher- 

 man -for-business was still a fisherman, but for pleasure only. The minnow and the 

 trolling-spoon took the place of the pound-net and the gill-net, and although the re- 

 action is not yet complete, it is yearly growing, and contentmemt and prosperity are 

 gradually settling down once more on a class of people from whom law and nature 

 have wrested one occupation merely to give them another in its stead. 



Pound-nets and trap-nets. — Pound-nets were introduced into Lake On- 

 tario at Black Kiver Bay, near Sackett's Harbor, by fishermen from the 

 Connecticut River, about 1850. From this point they were introduced 

 into other localities in the eastern end of the bay and between 1865 and 

 1875 quite a number of them were used, although, when compared with 

 the fisheries of other lakes, the pound net fishery can not be said to have 



