As soon as the vessel anchored, if the arrival was during the day, at 

 the dawn of the next day if the arrival was at night, everyone went to work. 



The dories were immediately put overboard for the first operation in 

 which they were used, which was to assure a sufficient quantity of Buccinus 

 to start fishing. These were captured near the vessel by means of bait bags 

 baited with horsemeat or salted herring. Later some dories continued to 

 maintain the init: al supply according to need. 



When a sufficient quantity of Buccinus was landed on deck, from which 

 soon emanated the pestilential odor of their decaying flesh, the trawls were 

 baited and the fishing proper begun. 



The departure of the dories for setting the trawls was done each day a- 

 bout 5 a. m. , each of them occupying a sector determined by lot at the start 

 of the season but periodically rotated. 



Going to his assigned sector, the head doryman reaches, by oar or by 

 sail, the point where he anchors one end of the trawls marked by a buoy at- 

 tached to the anchor line. Then he runs out his lines, being careful, under 

 penalty of fouling, to go with or across the current but never into it. Coming 

 to the other extremity of the trawl, he casts over the second anchor with its 

 attached buoy. 



Setting the trawl takes abotit 2 hours when the sea is calm and the dories 

 don't have far to go from the vessel. But this can take considerably longer 

 in bad weather or strong currents. Moreover it depends a great deal on the 

 distance to which the dory must go away from the vessel. 



On arrival at the fishing grounds, the dories have only to go about 100 

 fathoms from the vessel. But, little by little, the cod withdraw from the 

 area around the vessel fouled by waste, while the malodorant jetsam at- 

 tracts Buccinus and, at the same time, undesirable enemies of the cod and 

 destroyers of the trawls, dog-fish and Greenland sharks. Also, while the 

 bait fishermen get better catches close at hand, the trawls have to be set 

 farther and farther away, to distances up to 3 or 4 miles. 



It is then that the fishermen run the gravest risk on the banks, the sud- 

 den falling of fog or bad weather, with the danger, for the dories, of not be- 

 ing able to find or return to the vessel and of falling into the midst of the 



85 



