48 EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



them. There is as much food for the fishes here now as there was twenty 

 years ago. We never used to catch the sea-clams as much as we do now; 

 they are taken with rakes for the market; they are taken in water from 

 six to twelve feet deep. 



Blue fish are much more scarce here than they'have been. I do not 

 know where they spawn. 



Scup are not a fourth as plenty as last year. I think they spawn 

 somewhere in the Vineyard Sound; they used to spawn in this bay; 

 twenty years ago you could see schools of the young in the fall, all 

 about in the bay ; they have not been seen so for four or five years. 

 We begin to catch scup usually about the 10th of May. They could 

 not be caught with traps any earlier than they are caught with hooks. 

 When we catch them they are full of spawn. I caught two this spring- 

 that weighed 7£ pounds ; I never caught any larger. 



The matter of fishing is one of great importance to the people here ; 

 many get their living by it. In these places, Barnstable and Osterville, 

 there are one hundred boats employed in the business of fishing, which 

 would represent more than a hundred families. If the fishing is broken 

 up, the people will have to go to sea or to work on the land. Most of 

 them are old men, and, like myself, have no trade. I do not know what 

 else I could do. The biggest part of the men who have been in the 

 fishing business have no trade, and must fish or go to sea. It would 

 affect the sail and boat making business, too, if the fishing were to fail; 

 they cannot get half price for their boats. 



The business is falling off, year after year, worse and worse, for six or 

 eight years. I have been off here and in the course of a single fore- 

 noon caught 800 scup that would weigh five or six hundred pounds ; but 

 now I have not caught fifty pounds in this whole spring, and I have 

 been out every day since the 1st of May. I have not averaged a pound 

 of scup a day, fishing right on the same ground where I used to take so 

 many. Smacks that used to come in and get five or six hundred pounds 

 in a day, do not come at all now. I lay it to the pounds. 



The diminution began about ten years ago, and there has been a 

 falling off every year; so that I have not got more than a quarter as 

 many this year as last; and it is the same with others. 



There are no pounds right about here. The fish come here a fortnight 

 earlier than at Nantucket. Scup and bass follow the shore. They used 

 to catch scup near Saughkonet so plenty that they sold them for nine- 

 pence a barrel. They are never caught east ot Sandy Point. 



We always regarded this as the great breeding-ground for scup ; they 

 always had spawn in them when they came, but in October they had 

 no spawn in them. 



They used to come from New London, and eighteen boats would load 

 a smack in a day. 



We got two cents a pound for scup this year, and two now for blue- 

 fish. Last year we got two to the 1st of July, and then three. Ice 

 was generally scarce last year, and, as we had ice, we got better prices 

 than some others. 



When they were as plenty as at one time we could not give them 

 away. 



If the pounds stop the fish from coming along we shall not have any 

 to catch. 



There is no need of pounds to get bait for mackerel and cod-fisher- 

 men, because we can get all the bait that is wanted with purse-nets, the 

 same as has been done before. 



Menhaden are scarce here . now. They spawn here in these waters. 



