290 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[May 11, 1888. 



other countries based on the exportation of prepared fish 

 products, which now forms an important factor in the na- 

 tional wealth, the artificial propagation of food-fishes, and the 

 restocking of depleted fishing waters; and it is expedient that 

 the industries and interests thus concerned should be ade- 

 quately represented on the. occasion, Therefore, be it^. 



Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of 

 the United States of America in Congress assembled. That 

 the invitation of the British Government be accepted; and 

 that, uuder the auspices of the Department of State, the 

 United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries be, and 

 he hereby is, instructed to prepare or cause to be prepared a 

 complete and systematic representative exhibition of the 

 fisheries of the United States, in which shall be shown the 

 following: A series of models, maps, and charts showing 

 the location and extent of the various fishing grounds; a full 

 series of the principal sea and fresh-water" fishes, shellfish, 

 sponges, etc. , and other useful inhabitants of the waters of 

 the country (either as specimens, casts, or illustrations) ; speci- 

 mens of models of the various kinds of gear, apparatus, 

 boats, etc., used in their capture; a full collection of articles 

 showing the commercial and economic uses of the fishes and 

 other water animals, which shall include, besides the sam- 

 ples and specimens, models and other representations of 

 appliances used in their preparation and preservation for 

 food as well as for purposes of use and ornament, such as 

 dried, smoked and canned fish, etc., oils, fertilizers, manu- 

 factured shells, corals, sponges, etc. ; also a full series of 

 articles, or models thereof, showing the economic condition 

 of our fishermen, such as clothing "and other personal outfit, 

 models of dwelling houses, etc. ; a collection of documents 

 showing the present condition of fishery legislation; also 

 specimens, models, and illustrations of the apparatus used iu 

 the artificial hatching and breeding of fish, oysters, etc. ; 

 models of hatcheries, ponds, fishways, transportation cars, 

 vessels, etc., statistical maps showing the range, abundance, 

 etc. , of our fishes, etc. ; also such other facts, apparatus, 

 models, specimens, etc., as may be needed to convey a cor- 

 rect idea of this branch of the nation's industries. 



Sec. a. And be it further resolved that, with the approval 

 of the director of the National Museum, any cognate portion 

 of the collections thereof may be used in the preparation of the 

 exhibit, herein provided for, permission to remove the same 

 from the National Museum being hereby granted. And the 

 Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries is hereby authorized to 

 obtain by exchange, or otherwise, such procurable objects 

 from other exhibits in London as may tend to perfect the 

 permanent fishery exhibit of the United States National 

 Museum. 



Sec. 3. It shall be the duty of the United Stales Commis- 

 sioner of Fish and Fisheries to present to Congress a detailed 

 report of the present condition of the European fisheries, with 

 information as to any methods by which those of the United 

 States can be modified or improved, as well as any suggest- 

 ions he may deem pertinent in regard to increasing the ex- 

 portation of fishery products from the United States to 

 foreign countries. 



Sec. 4. The United States Commissioner of Fish and Fish- 

 eries is hereby authorized to represent the United States at 

 the exhibition in question, either iu person or by a deputy to 

 be appointed by the President of the United States; together 

 with such assistants as he may recommend as useful in carry- 

 ing out the proposed participation of the United States at 

 the Exhibition. 



Sec. 5. In order to defray the expenses of the collection, 

 preparation, and packing of the exhibit authorized, its trans- 

 fer from and to the United States, its installation and super- 

 vision in London, and such other incidental expenses as may 

 of necessity arise, there is hereby appropriated out of any 

 money in the Treasury of the United States not otherwise 

 appropriated, the sum of fifty thousand dollars or so much 

 thereof as may be required, to be immediately available, and 

 to be expended by the United States Commissioner of Fish 

 and Fisheries under the direction and regulations of the De- 

 partment of State. 



THE SHAD NETS OF THE CONNECTICUT. 



AS shad will be a household word with people of the 

 Atlantic coast for a couple of months to come, it may 

 Dot be uninteresting to the many people who eat them to 

 know something about the means employed in catching and 

 the men who, during the spring go " shadding. In this 

 article I shall treat of the men, nets, boats, and means of 

 capturing the Connecticut River shad. 



The shad fisherman's outfit at the commencement of the 

 season comprises a boat of from twelve to eighteen feet, in 

 length, oars, lantern, set of rubber or oiled clothing, rubber 

 boots, thick clothing and a gill net. On the bank of the 

 river he erects his reel, or lays two long smooth poles, sup- 

 ported by cr6tches about two feet high upon which the net 

 rests when not in use for fishing. 



The shadmen fish in pairs, one 'tending boat, the other the 

 net. The boatman, unless he has an interest in the net, re- 

 ceives one-third of the profits for his share, while the owner 

 of the boat and net takes the other two thirds, but the ex- 

 pense of the boat and net make the profits about equal for 

 the two men. The nets vary in length, depending on the 

 locality where they are used. At Saybrook they arc from 

 one hundred to one hundred and eighty rods long, while 

 from Middletown down to Essex they run short of eighty 

 rods, and from Middletown to Hartford are shorter still. 



About sundown the fishermen repair to their reels and "take 

 on" the net, the cork line being laid on one side of the stern 

 and the lead line on the other, the slack of the net, which is 

 about twenty feet deep, being laid between the cork and lead 

 lines. The oarsman then rows toward the opposite side of 

 the river, while the netman stands up in thestern and throws 

 out the ' 'pole staff, " a stick about ten feet long, heavily leaded 

 at the butt and surmounted on the top by some object readily 

 seen by the boatman. The net is connected with the pole 

 staff by ropes and is thrown out as the boat is rowed across 

 the river. When the net is all out, another rope connects it 

 with the boat, and the fishermen are ready for the ' drift," as 

 it is called. The net thus .stretched across the river is 

 allowed to float down, the boat drifting with it until they 

 arrive at the end of the "reach." By a general agreement of 

 fishermen the river is divided into sections of three or four 

 miles, called a "reach," and it is not considered fair 

 for men fishing in one to invade the territory of others, there- 

 fore when the end of the reach is made, the net is drawn 

 hack into the bout, and they row back to the starting point 

 and again cast off. 



Three or four drifts are made, the results varying from 

 nothing to sometimes a catch of two hundred or more. 

 When the fishermen are satisfied or tired out, they row back 

 to the reel and the net is reeled up to dry out. The net which 



is about twenty feet deep and varies in length, is leaded at 

 the bottom to sink it and corked at the top to float it, thus 

 keeping it vertical in the water. The material of which it is 

 constructed is fine linen twine about the size of carpet thread, 

 the meshes vary in size from three and one-half to four and 

 one-half inches, about four inches being most commonly 

 used. The shad swimming up the river come in contact with 

 the net, the head slips through a mesh and the shad is "gilled" 

 or strung in the net, When the net. is taken up they are 

 taken out of the mesh and fall into the boat. 



Shore nets or seines are worked on an entirely opposite plan 

 and are of different material and make. The shore net has 

 a fine mesh and is constructed of heavy twine; one end is 

 secured on the shore and the other end" is carried out into 

 the river by men in a boat. A circuit is then made and the 

 net returned to the shore. Both ends are now on dry land 

 and the haul is commenced. The mesh being fine almost 

 everything caught inside of it is landed. Many small shad 

 are thus caught which should be given their liberty, but are 

 usnall sold for a small price to shad peddlers. 



The fish are usually sold by contract for the season at so 

 much a hundred, varying from $14 to $18, or from fourteen 

 to eighteen cents a piece. Sometimes the fisherman sell by 

 the market price, getting good prices for the first fish and 

 then dropping down to five or six cents a fish for them when 

 the season is at. its height. Unless some accident befalls the 

 net, a shadman usually clears about $150 for his season's 

 w^ork. But, in all probability, the marketmen who sell the 

 shad reap a much richer harvest, for, with the wear and tear 

 of fishing and the cost of ice to pack their shad, the fisher- 

 men meet with considerable to lessen their profits. 

 ~ Sometimes, late in May, the fishermen anchor, or in other 

 words, make one end of the net secure to shore and then 

 wait in patience for their net to fill up. On these occasions 

 it is most pleasant to pass a night with the shadmen. Im- 

 agine, a beautiful moonlight night, the dark water and indis- 

 tinct shores, and the distant voices of the boatmen and now 

 and then a song or the music of some instrument wafted 

 across the river from some boat whose occupant is beguiling 

 the tedious hours with his banjo or guitar. 



Feawk A. Hetwood. 



STIRRING UP TROUT. 



HAVING been a trout fisher from the age of ten years. 

 I thought I had nothing learn in that time, but a few 

 years ago in Northern Michigan I was put up to a new device. 



A party of us, male and female, had gone from the island 

 of Macinac in a sailboat across the straits to the main land, 

 to a trout stream highly spoken of by our boatman. It was 

 in the month of August, when the insect tribes are hungry 

 and venomous. We landed and made our way through the 

 thick woods a quarter of a mile to the stream, on which had 

 once been a saw mill. The mill was ruined and the dam 

 gone, and the stream looked troutf ul. The woods were full of 

 raspberry bushes loaded with fruit. These the ladies of our 

 party attacked, but were driven ignominiously to the boat by 

 clouds of black flies and mosquitoes, as numerous in that 

 region as in Maine or Canada. 



We others pushed on to the stream, cautiously, rod in 

 hand, and tried the worm in various places, but without suc- 

 cess. No trout responded to our invitations. After a while 

 our boatman came up from the lake and said: "Let me try 

 and see if I can't raise one. " He took one of our rods and 

 waded up and down the stream, disturbing the water and' 

 making it flow with a thick current, of mud and sand. Then 

 he began to fish, and soon had half a dozen quarter of a 

 pound trout, on shore. 



By this time the news of the arrival of fresh blood had 

 spread far and wide among the mosquitoes, and they hast- 

 ened to the banquet in such numbers, that we all retreated to 

 the shore and embarked without trying' to practice this new 

 method of trout fishing— new at least to us, and opposed to 

 all our theories of that sport. I had seen the bottom raked 

 successfully in fishing for shiners and minnows, which are 

 induced to feed in that way; perhaps, because it stirs up the 

 small insects and worms from the bottom. 



So these Michigan trout, being unacquainted with men 

 and his wiles, may have imagined that the boots of our boat- 

 man roiling the water meant a beneficent shower, bringing 

 them plenty of food. 



The moral of my tale is, "that one is never too old to learn." 

 _^ S. C. C. 



SHAD IN MOROCCO. 



A CONNECTICUT gentleman, who knows every inch of 

 -TX the United States seaboard on the Atlantic, and takes 

 no little interest in pisciculture, makes the following state- 

 ment: 



Shad fishing is carried on here by quite a number of the 

 natives, and large quantities are caught in their nets. The 

 first intimation I ever had of the existence of shad in Mo- 

 rocco was in May, 1877, when on a visit to the city of Fez 

 iu company with a government official. While quartered in 

 a palace allotted to us by the sultan, a plate of fried fish was 

 placed before us at breakfast, and on tasting it I at once dis- 

 covered it was shad and spoke of it as such. The whole of 

 the company present, however, disagreed with me. The 

 following day, at my request, a most magnificent shad was 

 placed before us uncooked. It was then decided that the 

 fish was shad. Since that time I have visited all the ports on 

 the seacoast of Morocco, from Tetuan to Mogador, and have 

 seen the shad in all its varieties. There are on the coast of 

 Morocco five rivers, in which there are from eight to twelve 

 feet of water over the bars at high tide. They are the river 

 at Tetuan, the Sabou River, at Larachi; the river that divides 

 Sali and Rabat, and the Azamore River, twenty miles north- 

 east of Mazagan. These rivers are frequented by shad every 

 year. The fish enter in the month of December and remain 

 in until about the 1st of May. I am under the impression 

 that there is but one shad fishery on each river, but can speak 

 positively of the river that empties its waters into the ocean 

 between Rabat and the noted old pirate rendezvous, Sali. 

 This fishery I have visited on three different occasions in 

 three successive years. 



The station is about eight miles up from the mouth of the 

 river. It is a rather primitive concern, but, novel as it may 

 appear, they catch large quantities of shad. At the fishing 

 grounds the river is about seventy yards wide. A large rope 

 made of the slender branches of willow is run across the 

 river, hauled taut and belayed. A seine is then passed 

 passed from shore to shore, suspended from the willow rope, 

 and is left there during the fishing season. The fishermen 

 then fish by tides. As the fish can pass no further up the 

 river, theycongregate at the seine. At every high and low r 

 water slack a small net is worked through the water. From 



ten to twelve hundred shad are frequently caught in a day 

 They are then placed in large, rough boats, taken down the 

 Rabat and Sali, and sold for about twelve cents each. Many 

 of them are split open on the back like our fishermen split 

 mackerel, leaving the head on and backbone in. These are 

 corned, loaded on camels, and sent to the cities in the interior, 

 Fez, Maquinez, and the city of Morocco. 



The size and quality of the shad in Morocco far exceed 

 any that are caught in the United States, the Azamore River 

 here, like the Connecticut River, producing the largest and 

 best fish. When I first came here I purchased a camel-load 

 from the Azamore River to salt down. They had been 

 brought from a distance of forty miles, and cost me about 

 fourteen cents each. There were sixty-four shad in the load, 

 and among them I found some that weighed eleven pounds; 

 not one of them weighed less than six pounds. Their flavor 

 is excellent. I have been informed by people here that they 

 have seen shad caught in the Azamore River that weighed 

 fourteen pounds, and I believe it, The salting of the shad 

 with the intention of keeping them over the year as we do is 

 a failure. They are so extraordinarily fat that in a few 

 months they begin to rust and have, an unpleasant taste. No 

 doubt the warm climate is one of the causes of this. The 

 shad are never taken out of the country. 



Casablanca, Morocco, January. 



TENNESSEE FISH NOTES. 



I AM sorry to say that even now that we have laws for the 

 protection of fish, that seining and vandalistic means of 

 catching fish are openly carried on and no one to report the 

 guilty ones. Pegram'smill dam was seined a few days ago, 

 depopulating it of fish entirely. The Cumberland River and 

 its tributaries arc. filled with nets and traps, though the of- 

 fenders laugh at the authorities and their laws. If such 

 influential citizens as Charles E. Hillman, Silas Many, Frank 

 Firrman, Frank Krider, Edgar Jones, Ed. Hicks' AV. M. 

 Duncan and others, would take the matter in hand they 

 could stop it. These gentlemen should organize themselves 

 into a game and fish protection association, and enli-t the 

 co-operation of dealers in such articles of food, and between 

 them pass laws and rules that would put a stop to traffic iu 

 game and fish out of season, or taken other than in the legiti- 

 mate manner. If the pot-fishermen and wholesale destroy- 

 ers of these two delicious articles of food had no market for 

 their goods, and be indicted and punished as well, they 

 would give up their infamous doings. It would take a little 

 time and some trouble to make this organization effective, 

 but through correspondents in Memphis. Enoxville and 

 Chattanooga, the dealers and law-abiding citizens of the entire 

 State could be enrolled in the good cause. Until such action . 

 is taken, and the people united in maintaining the law in a 

 territory so large as Tennessee, it must become a dead 

 letter. 



Notwithstanding the above, fish in certain streams have 

 been very abundant this spring. Messrs. Hampton, Cheney, 

 Jim Sweeny, and a party of gentlemen of Hunteville, Ala., 

 returned a day or two ago from an excursion to Crow Creek, 

 at a point near where it enters the Tennessee River; there 

 they had grand sport, creeling a number of superb jaekfish. 

 Cheney landed one which tipped the beam at eleven and a 

 half and Jim another at ten pounds. Fearing his word might 

 be questioned, he brought his tale home to his good wife, so 

 everyone believed the rest of their story. 



Mr. Poole caught a yellow cat out of the river the other 

 day with ordinary tackle which weighed sixty-one pounds. 

 During the high water this spring a number of ponds which 

 had been stocked with German carp were inundated, and 

 now Brown's Creek is said to be swarming with the young of 

 that breed, washed out, no doubt, by the current of course 

 their tenure of life is short, as the bass and other voracious 

 varieties will soon destroy them. 



The mania for pond building and fishculture remains un- 

 abated among our fanners, but: as only a very few of them 

 go about it rightly, the results will be meagre. I have 

 written article upon article upon the subject, giving the best 

 authority I could find in your valuable paper and from 

 others, though the prevailing idea that a hole with water iu 

 it is all that is necessary to successful fish-raising predomin- 

 ates. Some few of our farmers, however, have gone about 

 the matter systematically and will be rewarded ere long with 

 splendid residts. J. D. H. 



Nashville, May 2, 1883. 



Taking Black Bass Turough the Ice.— Referring to 

 reports of "H.," Plymouth, N. H, in your issue of April 

 27. Some of our fishermen caught in the latter part of 

 March, while fishing for pickerel through the tee in Big 

 Pond, some six black bass, all large, one I saw and estimated 

 it at four pounds. This is the first instance that' I know of 

 where they were caught through the ice. They were intro 

 duced about nine years ago. — C. Gekbbk, (Webster, Mass.) 



Eadjbow Trout for Meacham Lake. — On the first of 

 this month Messrs. James Geddes, Reuben Wood, and a party 

 left Syracuse for Meacham Lake, Franklin county, N. Y.. 

 with 20,000 eggs of rainbow trout to be hatched on account 

 of the New York Fish Commission by Mr. A. R. Fuller 

 They will remain and have some trout fishing. When we 

 heard of it our soul broke forth in the old song: "Would I 

 were with thee, every day and hour." 



BIENNIAL SPAWNING OP SALMON.— Chicago EL— 

 Your issue of April 27 contained a letter signed "Samuel 

 Webber," in which he speaks of the "biennial theory' 1 regard- 

 ing salmon as if it required corroboration, which I thought it 

 did not. In Scotland it is a universally accepted fact that 

 after spawning the salmon drop back into the big pools and 

 there spend the rest of the winter until the spring floods come 

 and carry them down to the sea. Although the salmon are 

 usuqlly "blotched" and discolored during spawning time, 

 they almost always regain their silvery color before spring. 

 They are popularly called "kelts" at that season, and when 

 they are jumping, unless you get a close view and see the 

 slab-sided* thin appearance of the "critter," you might easily 

 imagine him a "clean run fish." They arc always troubled at 

 this time with "maggots" hi their gills. The end of April 

 usually sees all the "kelts" cleared out of the river, but I have 

 hooked them on small trout flies well into the month of liny. 

 On one occassion a "kelt" which had been taken in April and 

 returned to the stream with the addition of a brass ring in 

 his tail to identify him, was captured in the same stream in j 

 October, a fine, clean fish, fresh from the sea.— R. J. W. 



SHAD FRY.— The United States Fish Commission will dis 

 tribute .50,000,000 of shad fry this month. 



