

PEESENT CONDITION OF THE FISHEEIES. 13 



first four years I did not exceed four or five hundred pounds a month. 

 This year I got at some single hauls more than duriug the whole former 

 season. Last year I got as many as twelve or fifteen hundred- weight. 

 I do not know the cause of the diminution of the scup, but I think they 

 may have diminished from the same cause that many other fish have 

 that were never caught in our traps, such as the bull's-eye ; the old fisher- 

 men say they used to catch them in large quantities. 



Mr. Swan. They used to be here every season. They disappeared 

 twenty-five years ago. There is not one to ten striped bass that there 

 used to be. They catch the small ones by hundreds, in the traps, early 

 in the season. 



Mr. Southwick. We take up the traps after May, and do not put 

 them down again at all. The heart-seines are kept down through the 

 season, because the heart-seines do not need watching, and you can go 

 and get the fish out at any time, the fish remaining in them. The traps 

 are best when the fish come in large bodies. We catch menhaden in 

 the traps sometimes, but we have to work very quick. The heart-seines 

 are supposed to catch all the time. 



Mr. King. Nine out of ten of the fish have spawn in them in the 

 spring ; they are slow and lie around, and will not run out of a square 

 trap. Gill-nets are used around here too ; they catch blue-fish in them 

 outside, but they are much more scarce than formerly. They say scup 

 are blind when they first come, but it is not so ; they move slow because 

 they are full of spawn. Large bass are caught here in the winter, in 

 deep water, with clam-bait, but they are slow in biting. In one winter 

 they were thrown up in great numbers on Block Island, frozen to death. 

 The pucker-mouth is caught in winter in shallow water; the other flat 

 fish go into deeper water. 



Mr. Swan. 1 caught a Spanish mackerel about twenty years ago. We 

 should not get many now were it not for the traps. 



Mr. Southwick. They are caught only in the heart-seines, because the 

 square traps are taken up before they come in. 



Mr. Swan. I can remember when the blue-fish first came in ; they did 

 not catch them when I was a boy. It must have been forty years ago 

 when, at one time that I had been fishing for tautog, I trolled for blue- 

 fish, and got several that day. Twenty years ago we could catch scup 

 in any quantity, but since the traps came in they dwindled off. 



Mr. Southwick. Nobody disputes the fact that scup have of late years 

 been less plenty than formerly. They showed themselves quite plenty 

 last year. Near Bristol Ferry they caught them in plenty. 



Mr. King. There were not so many barrels shipped to New York this 

 year as last. 



Mr. Southwick. That is no criterion. The great bulk of the fish are 

 sent directly to New York from the traps in vessels. 



Mr. King. There have not been half so many vessels on the river as 

 last season. I have not caught three scup in three years. 



Mr. Southwick. The pounds about Point Judith have taken more 

 than in any year for three years ; that is the general information. There 

 is one trap, near the Spouting Bock at Watch Hill, which has been more 

 successful in getting scup this year than for a number of years. 



William Dennis, Esq. : 



Question. Have you paid any attention to the political economy of 

 this fishing question ? 

 Answer. I am a Newporter, and am here every year for about two 



