30 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



20th of May, when they went into the menhaden fishing; but now they 

 keep the traps down through May. 



When I was a boy I used to see men who followed tautog fishing go 

 off in the early morning, and come back with as many as they could sell 

 by 7 or 8 o'clock in the forenoon ; now you cannot get any to sell by 

 going all day. 



The striped bass that winter on our coast have dwindled off to nothing. 



George Dwinnell : 



In 1835 they put their seines together near Point Judith, and they 

 caught fish by thousands ; they have never been so plenty here since. 



In one trap there were 20,000 small bass caught in one season ; they 

 were sold at 25 cents a dozen. We used to catch them weighing from 

 two to four pounds ; now we don't get any of that size. At one time I 

 caught bass for a week that weighed from twenty to sixty pounds ; then 

 there was a seine put in, and they started off. 



Mr. MACT : 



I have seen 2,000 pounds caught here in a day. George Mason sold 

 what he caught in one day for $22. 



Mr. Smith : 



Seven years ago the 28th day of June, I sold fifty-six dollars' worth, 

 that I caught before 6 o'clock in the morning; I got eight cents a pound 

 for them. 



George Orabb: 



I do not average more than two dollars a day, fishing. The greatest 

 catch in one day this year was 208 pounds ; I have not caught over 200 

 pounds a day but twice this year — once 201 and once 206. They were 

 extraordinary days, and I fished from 3 to 4 o'clock in the morning till 

 6 o'clock in the afternoon. If I had fished as long a few years ago, I 

 should have got more than my boat would carry. I have loaded my 

 boat with sea-bass, but I cannot get any now; I think my average catch 

 has been about sixty pounds a day, during this season. The season is 

 best about four months. I used to catch blue-fish ; this year I have not 

 caught any. 



Mr. Smith : 



I have caught twenty-four blue-fish with a hook and line ; they are 

 not worth fishing for. 



Mr. C. H. Burdick : 



Four years ago last May I went off fishing, and caught 63 blue-fish in 

 one school; that night my brother-in-law, who had a seine in Oodding- 

 ton's Cove, caught over five thousand pounds. The school went right 

 up the river, and they caught them. 



Mr. Macy : 



When I first came here, there would be thirty or forty sail of smacks 

 here for fish. There has been a great falling off until this year, when 

 there are scarcely any. About all the fish caught here have been 

 shipped from the steamboat wharf. 



