PRESENT CONDITION OF THE FISHERIES. 49 



I have seen plenty of little ones here in September and October. We 

 do not get any mackerel here with the hook. 



We used to get a great many striped bass in the bay here in the month 

 of May. They do not stay here in the winter, and are only caught in 

 May and June, and then again in September. 



It is not true that the more pounds there are the more fish ; the more 

 pounds the less fish. There is not a boat fisherman in Hyannis but 

 knows that pounds are the cause of the fish being so scarce here. I 

 think they catch our scup about Saughkonet, in Bhocle Island. They 

 get them sooner at Saughkonet than at Vineyard Sound, and about a 

 week earlier at Waquoit than here. 



This year the scup came here first, on the 22d day of April, which 

 was about two weeks earlier than usual. 



We send most of the fish caught here away to market. The blue-fish 

 are sent to New York. Many people around here have not had a scup 

 this year. 



A few Spanish mackerel are caught here in the fall in nets ; they are 

 never caught with the hook. None were caught until within five or six 

 years. 



There are no skip-jacks here. I have not seen any stingarees here 



Hyannis, Massachusetts, June 29 ; 1871. 



Alexander Crowell: 



The fishing business has gone down so that it is not more than one- 

 fourth of what it was four years ago. The pounds take the whole 

 schools. They are killing all the spawn and will thus kill the breed. I 

 am quite sure it is the pounds ; it is plain enough. The fish all come 

 here from the west through Vineyard Sound. Six or seven years ago, 

 the New London smacks would come here and eighteen men would load 

 a vessel every day, carrying about five thousand pounds — about one 

 thousand five hundred fish. They have now given up the business, they 

 get so few. 



The scup used to stay till the last of July and then go away, and come 

 again in September 5 but the big ones did not come again till the next 

 spring. 



The blue-fish came here about thirty-five years ago. We catch sea- 

 bass here, but very few compared with what we used to do. The pogies 

 have gone also. We get very few Spanish mackerel. The menhaden 

 are also more scarce. The blue-fish feed on menhaden. 



The scup spawned in the Sound here. 



Hyannis, Massachusetts, June 29, 1871. 



Joseph G. Loring: 



The number of fish has decreased here very much within the last ten 

 years, since I first began to deal in them. The fish taken here are princi- 

 pally caught with the hook ; never taken in pounds. We think that the 

 pounds keep the fish from the shores ; we do not get fish in-shore as we 

 used to. Pretty soon after the pounds were first put down we began to 

 notice a decrease in the fish, and whether the pounds break up the 

 schools or what the trouble is, we do not know; but we know the fish 

 are much more scarce than they used to be. 

 S. Mis. 61 4 



