April 2, 1904.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
27B 
the hope of finding a job to tide him over till the next 
mackerel season, Jim, with his money gone and his 
wits at a low ebb, had shipped with a hard-headed and 
hard-lucked Franchman for a midwinter cruise to the 
Grand Banks. After three months of. gales and seas, 
which for days removed all possibility of going in the 
dories, which dragged the trawls and set adrift the 
buoys ; cold which encrusted the vessel in six 
inches of ice over night and necessitated incessant 
chopping by day; sickness, and one burial at sea, Jim 
again set foot in Gloucester. His share for the trip 
did not amount to as much as an ordinary day laborer 
can make in a week. 
In winter when the mackerel are gone they seek a 
change in occupation. A few go to the banks, or to 
Nova Scotia for frozen herring, some on coasters or 
South American freighters, many become carpenters — ■ 
they are very handy with tools — or ice cutters, or work 
for the firm in Gloucester, skinning fish, or doing odd 
jobs, even to being motormen or conductors in the 
towns throughout New England. Anything to keep 
them busy until the next season. 
Career of our captain, a magnificent specimen of 
American manhood, in the prime of life, almost 6ft. 
in height and big all over, is typical of the training 
which these men receive before they reach this coveted 
position. On the banks at eleven years of age, he had 
at different times followed all branches of the business, 
filled ice houses, worked in shipyards, skinning and 
drying lofts, gone as mate and captain of a coaster and 
finally captain of a seiner, after an experience with sea 
and fish in all their moods, covering a period of over 
forty years. A fund of useful knowledge he was, too, 
of good education, one of the most noted "killers" in 
the fleet, and a man who enjoyed the respect of his men 
and the confidence of his employers. 
The routine work on board the seiner is very light. 
the sun abaft the cabin roof, with your mates possibly 
occupied in the same way or asleep in their bunks be- 
low, when suddenly will come the cry from aloft. School 
to sta'board!" The vessel is awake in an instant. Up 
come_ the men, with their oilskins handy, should the 
captain, who has gone aloft at the call, satisfy 
himself that the fish are mackerel, and not squid, por- 
gies or kyacks. He alters the vessel's course a couple 
of times, gives the order to take to the boat, notes the 
size of the school, the direction in which they aire 
traveling, and finally comes sliding down the side stay 
to find the seine boat alongside, the seine unlashed and 
the ten rowers and the three heavers in their places. 
All of which has occupied about a minute and a half 
from the time we received the order to man the boat. 
But where are the fish? Ah, there they rush! with a 
great rippling on the surface, and after them we go! 
every man putting his back into it! Within striking 
distance, the end of the seine is thrown over, the purse 
line pitched up by the dory and away it is to surround 
the fish. No easy work is this for anybody. Quarter 
of a mile, the length of the seine, must we row, with 
every ounce of power, every oar bending, three men 
heaving that heavy seine, the bottom or purse line of 
which sinks 120 feet below the surface, and the captain 
swinging the boat with his huge oar, before we have com- 
pleted the circle and received the other end of the line 
from the waiting dory. All that remains now is the 
pursing and we will have them, and if you thought the 
rowing heavy work, what will you call this! Three 
men at each of the two cranks with frequent spells 
make the machine hum; but you can't help thinking 
you've fouled some old sunken derelict or the bottom, 
the drag is so tremendous. Five minutes will complete 
it, however, and then you mop your brow and wonder 
what you've got. So you begin hauling in the corks at 
bow and stern and the seine over the side of the boat. 
Fish Chat. 
BY EDWARD A. SAMUELS. 
CoQcerning Tackle for Trout. 
It is only enthusiasts who begin' their trout fishing 
on April i, but there are a host of them, and the provi- 
dent ones have already got their tackle in first class 
shape; but the improvident anglers far outnumber the 
others, and a few suggestions to such will, perhaps, not 
be uot of place here. 
In the first place those who use the split bamboO; 
rods— and most anglers do nowadays — find it to their 
advantage to take them to the rod maker and have 
them examined carefully for splits and cracks, and then 
varnished. It is astonishing how quickly a tip will snap 
if an old and apparently insignificant crack is neglected 
through the winter, and it is not necessary that the 
fibres of the wood shall be broken at that; cracks in 
the varnish beneath which the water has penetrated to 
the wood and soaked into it in a greater or less degree 
weaken the rod very much, and even if it is in perfect 
condition so far as injuries go. I am one of those who 
believe that it should have a coating of proper varnish 
every season in which it is used. 
The ferrules, with long continued casting, may have 
become so worn that they slip apart often at a very 
critical time; more than one good trout have I seen 
lost by the rod separating at one of the joints, while 
the fish was being played. The ferrules made nowa- 
days are as near perfection as can be, both as to fit 
and durability, they are vastly better than those which 
were made ten or fifteen years ago, and if one has a 
rod that is still capable of doing good work and the 
ferrules on it have become worn, he will get better 
service from it if he has them replaced, by modern ones. 
USE FOR THE BARRELS. 
FISHERMEN OF GLOUCESTER. 
A full crew consists of eighteen men and a cook, and 
they receive equal shares of one-half a catch, after a few 
minor expenses have been deducted. "Cookie" re- 
ceives a bonus of $1 per day and the captain an extra 
4 per cent. The watch is stood by two men at a time, 
one hour at the wheel and one at the masthead on 
lookout, and as there is very little shifting of sails the 
rest of the time is spent very much as each man wishes. 
Breakfast begins the day at 4 o'clock, with dinner six 
hours later, supper at 3:30 being the last of the regular 
meals. The food is good, fish and corned beef, pota- 
toes, mackerel (after a catch), beans, pies, puddings, 
tea and coffee being the principal items. The larder, 
or closet, as it is called, is handy and frequently re- 
plenished, so that there is no danger of underfeeding. 
The fact that mackerel are now much scarcer, and 
so harder to find, than they were thirty or forty years 
ago, contributes a charm to a midsummer cruise on one 
of these vessels, which no other branch of the fisheries 
can offer — unless it be the swordfishermen. They are 
continually on the move. If fish are reported off 
George's Bank, all vessels in harbor from Cape Cod to 
Mt. Desert get the news and sail at once. By the time 
they reach George's, the fish have possibly disappeared, 
and so they cruise around continually making harbor 
and speaking vessels in order to hear the latest. No 
reporter is keener for a beat than your mackerel cap- 
tain for reports of fish. With almost 100 of these ves- 
sels continually on the go, the waters from Cape Sable 
to Cape Cod and east a couple of hundred miles are 
raked as with a fine tooth comb countless times during 
the summer. 
Not the least remarkable feature of the business is 
the speed with which they will discover a vessel which 
has just made a catch. I well recollect one morning, 
when at daybreak we sighted, two vessels some four 
miles to windward, their headsails down, the sure sign 
of a catch. Gasolene served us better than the wind, 
which was light, arid enabled us to net a $1,000 school, 
about sixty-five wash barrels. When we made our 
strike at 5 o'clock there- were five vessels in sight from 
the masthead. At 10:30 the fleet -numbered fifteen. 
They jogged along from all points of the - compass, 
seerningly with no other guidance to this particular spot 
in the ocean, 180 miles off shore, than that marvelous 
instinct that enables a good captain to smell fish, as 
it were, if he is within thirty or forty miles of them. 
The chief interest and business of the cruise begins, 
of course, when fish are sighted. You will be sailing 
along slowly in a ijoft sou'wester, doz.ing on 4«ck iu 
There comes a mackerel, caught in the twine. Heave 
him back. And another, and another, more and more 
frequently, till you realize that you have made a catch, 
and that now there will be some use for those empty 
barrels down in the hold. The vessel, which has been 
standing back and forth nearby then comes up, and the 
fish are dumped into the pocket alongside, and from 
there bailed out onto the deck by means of heavy long- 
handled nets. They are then iced, if the captain de- 
cides to run them in fresh, or split down the back, 
cleaned, salted and allowed to stand in barrels on deck 
until well packed. The next day the barrels are headed, 
holes bored in the sides through which the pickle is 
introduced and they are then sealed and stowed in the 
hold. Twenty minutes later the vessel is as clean as 
when she left port. 
Do not imagine that success is the rule in catching 
these fish. The odds are all against the fisherman. The 
sun may be too bright, the fish — they are usually wild- 
may swim out of the open side of the circle before you 
have surrounded them, the seine may be fouled and 
allow them to escape over the corks or underneath, 
while large schools, aided by a shark or two, have 
been known in their mad rushes to tear holes in the 
net large enough for a whale to go through. Instinct 
is their surest safeguard, and when they bring this into 
play, you will see them lie on the surface watching that 
hole underneath grow smaller and smaller, until just 
when you think you have them, down they go to come 
up on the other side of the net. All that is left for you 
will be a dory load. It is not at all unusual for ten or 
twelve sets to be made in one day and not a barrel 
caught. As a general thing they school better just at 
daybreak and dusk, while many good catches are made 
at night when they are betrayed by the phosphorus in 
the water. The catches run as high as 700 barrels in 
one set, but are generally from 60 to 100 barrels; 200 
barrels in the hold and a fair priced market, say $18 
a barrel, will tempt any captain to make a quitk run to 
port to unload. 
The rivalry between the vessels is intense, and no 
greater distinction can come to any captain than to be 
high line of the fleet at the end of the season. 
After leaving the vessel the careful fisherman will 
find the results of his season's labors to be an addition 
of from $300 to $800 to his bank account, and with his 
health at 100 per cent, he will then begin to look around 
for some occupation to keep him going until the 
mackerel fleet will again. set sail out of Gloucester. 
A year or two ago I had two of my rods thus re- 
paired, and they are now fully as good as they were 
when new. If the reels were not overhauled when 
they were put away last fall the should be attended to 
now; on removing the plates one will find that con- 
siderable dirt has worked in between them, and they 
are encrusted with more or less greasy gum. This 
should be wiped carefully away and a few drops of fine 
oil put on all the bearings. It is also very important 
to examine and thoroughly test the line; one cannot af- 
ford to take any chances with a weak line when angling 
for large trout. Careful anglers before they put their 
lines away in the fall stretch them out in the sun to 
dry; if there is a strand here and there from which the 
varnish has been chafed or worn off, the line becomes 
saturated with moisture far beyond where the bare 
spots occur, and if they are left on the reel without first 
being thoroughly dried, they rot and weaken very con- 
siderably in' a few months. This chafed condition is 
most pronounced for a yard or two of the line, which 
is drawn back and forth through the loop at the end of 
the tip in casting. 
I once saw that enthusiastic angler, the late T. B. 
Stewart, of New York, lose a magnificent trout at 
the Upper Dam on the Rangeley Lakes, Me., through 
his. line breaking just before the fish could- be saved 
with the landing net. I shall always remember the ex- 
pression on Mr. Stewart's face when the rod sprang 
back and the fish went down the stream out of the 
pool. He told me subsequently that he knew perfectly 
well there was a badly chafed spot on the line, which 
by rights should have been cut out, but he had no idea 
the strands had become so weakened. After that ac- 
cident he always tested his lines every season before 
he used them. It was a good seven pound fish that 
he lost, and a man less philosophical than he was would 
have used very strong language when the trout hurried 
away. 
. Leaders and Flies. 
It is economy to purchase and use only the very best 
leaders or casting lines; a saving of a dollar or so in 
buying- a half dozen of an inferior grade is not economy 
at all. The very best all round gut that is put in tackle 
shop leaders is none too good, and for a number of 
years I have found that I got more satisfaction from 
leaders that . I tied myself, and I searched pretty care- 
fully for the best gut for them before I purchased it. 
There is a prevailing notion that leaders a year or 
tyfq 0I4 Q^nnpt 1?^' ^epen4?cl iipp?^, | f^^ve proved tf^^ 
