38 EEPOET OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. ' 



Captain Francis Pease. Fish are getting a great deal scarcer than 

 they used to he. A few years ago you could sit on the end of the 

 wharf and catch fish enough before breakfast for a family. Any boy or 

 old gentleman could do it. Now they are gone. The scarcity com- 

 menced when they began to put down the pounds. There used to be 

 scup and tautog all through the harbor here very plenty, but now we can 

 scarcely get any that are eatable ; we have to go out of the Sound. 

 Every year we have to go farther out. 



I do most of my fishing outside. I have not noticed the harbor as 

 much as the other fishermen, and do not know about there being young 

 scup here, though there always are some. I was on the wharf fishing 

 for cunners and T got two or three little scup. 



There are no traps on the island this side of Holmes's Hole. Up at 

 Meuemsha they caught up so many fish that they could not dispose of 

 them. We do not get blue-fish as plenty as we used to. There are a 

 good many caught with seines. The boatmen think they have not done 

 as well this year as before. Most of the fish caught here are shipped to 

 New Bedford and New York. There are some thirty-five boats that are 

 sending off fish. Vessels come in and take them — four or five of them. 

 The majority of the boatmen sell to the vessels. The latest that I have 

 known blue-fish to be caught was the last of October; but those are 

 what, we call the fat ones, weighing from ten to fifteen pounds apiece. 

 We don't catch many of them, and those we want ourselves. Most of 

 them are caught over at the island of Muskeget. I think the blue-fish 

 spawn at the south. They are a warm-weather fish ; the least cold will 

 send them off into deep water. 



Captain JosiahC. Pease. We calculate that the blue-fish spawn here 

 about the last of July and first of August. I have seen them when I 

 think they were spawning on the sands. I have caught them a short 

 time before full of spawn, and then for a time afterward they would be 

 thin and weak. They do not get much fat about them till the last of 

 August or first of September. They spawn on white, sandy bottom, 

 right out to the eastward of this island, toward Muskeget. I have 

 seen them there in considerable numbers formerly. All kinds of fish 

 are scarcer now than they used to be. A few years ago we could get 

 any quantity of them. 



Question. What has made them scarce; has there been any disease 

 among them ? 



Answer. Yes, sir. The disease is twine, I think. Fishing never killed 

 out the fish. 



When I was a boy we could catch as many scup right off the wharves 

 as we wanted. I do not think there are as many fish caught with the 

 hook and line as there used to be. We would catch them if we could 

 get a chance. 



It is only about twelve years since fish have been shipped in large 

 quantities. Before that the market was nearer home, and no fish 

 caught with the hook and line were shipped. Bass were so plenty 

 in those days that we could not get more than three or four cents a 

 pound for them • now they are worth ten or twelve cents. I recollect 

 seeing one man, when I was a boy, haul up three thousand, that he 

 allowed to lie and rot. Our boats could then get one hundred in a day 

 quite frequently ; large bass, too. 



Question. But bass are not caught in the pounds, are they? 



Answer. They are a cunning fish, and know enough not to go into 

 the pounds after they have been in one once. 



