by a horizontal iron triangle about three feet long which carried a leader at 

 each of its extremities. Each man received for the season 10-12 lines with 

 a provision of leaders and hooks. 



The fisherman having run out his line began a continuous up and down 

 movement in order to attract the attention of the fish to the bait fixed on the 

 hook. 



There is no information concerning the baits used during the early days 

 of the bank fishery. It does not seem that the fishermen of the 16th century 

 used fresh herring and capelin which they could have procured readily on 

 the coast of Newfoundland or on the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, nor 

 squid which they could have caught, in season, at the same place they were 

 fishing. It is possible they used, to a certain extent, salted herring and mack- 

 erel carried from France, and sea birds caught on the line on the banks, but 

 it seems that they always used the waste of their fishery, the heads and vis- 

 cera of cod. 



When a fisherman sensed by a tugging movement of the line that a fish 

 was hooked, he pulled him to the surface and landed him by gaffing him in 

 the gills. When he happened on a very large fish, he used a kind of landing 

 net, the manet (gill net) or truble (hoop-net). 



Such is the voracity of the cod that it often happened that one fish already 

 hooked on one line would hurl himself at the bait of another hook, hooking 

 himself equally. When a cod was found thus hooked, it was credited to the 

 fisherman whose hook had embedded itself nearest to the eye, because it was 

 considered that the hook which had penetrated most deeply (down the throat) 

 had been taken first, and that the fisherman which had not noted the capture 

 made on his line should pay thus for his negligence. 



As soon as the cod was unhooked, the fisherman pierced it by the back 

 on the head on a sharp point on the rail to his left and with a sharp stroke 

 with his knife he cut out the tongue, which was evidence serving to establish 

 his count of cod each evening at the end of fishing. Sometimes he opened the 

 stomach of the fish to withdraw the entrails for baiting his line; then he 

 threw it in the cod bin on the deck. The tongues, delivered each evening to 

 the captain, were generally salted in barrels. They have always been con- 

 sidered choice delicacies in some regions. 



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