246 
BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
The report for 1871 (p. 11) remarks: 
The present season has proved even better than the last, and the hook-and-line men every- 
where report a good catch, and often an increase of large specimens. 
The report for 1874 (p. 18) indicates that a law was passed prohibiting the catch- 
ing of smelts by any other method than by hook and line in all State waters except 
Taunton Great River, Dukes County, Yarmouth, Dennis, Bass River or its tribu- 
taries, North, and Westport Rivers. The statement continued: 
Twenty-five years ago the lower waters of the Mystic River were, in winter, crowded with 
little tents for the protection of persons engaged in fishing. Many, out of employment at that 
season, made two to three dollars per day catching smelts, with hook and line, for the market, at 
six or seven cents per pound. The seining in the river and netting them on their spawning beds 
soon destroyed all fishing with hook and line, and, in a few years more, seines and nets were abandoned 
because they did not pay. So completely was the the river depleted that the fish committee of 
the town of Winchester spent several nights in catching fifty-two smelts for the purpose of stock- 
ing the river above Mystic dam. For the past five years these fish have been carefully protected 
in this river and its tributaries; so rapidly have they increased that in the spring the small streams 
are alive with them crowding up to spawn, and last winter the little tents began to appear on the 
river below, many persons catching from twelve to fourteen dozen, each, a day. 
The report went on to say that seven-eighths of the constant and steady supply 
of smelts for the Boston market came from Green Bay, near Portsmouth, and were 
caught with hook and line, the fishermen making from three to five dollars per day. 
The report for 1875 said that smelts had been very plentiful that fall, as high as 
80 dozen having been taken with a single rod in one day. According to Forest and 
Stream, this year smelts were abundant and retailed at from 25 to 30 cents per pound. 
Ordway (1875), writing from Boston on December 12, 1874, to the commission- 
ers of inland fisheries of Massachusetts, said: 
In reply to your inquiries as regards the practical working of the smelt-law, passed by our last 
legislature, and the effect of the close time, allow me to say that it has exceeded the most sanguine 
expectations of the friends of this beautiful fish. Smelt of enormous size have been caught, whilst 
thousands of small smelt have shown the beneficial result of allowing the females to throw their 
spawn last spring, instead of being stolen by a few seines. Besides this, hundreds and tens of hun- 
dreds of poor mechanics have had a chance to catch a good mess for their families after 'their day’s 
work was over. In addition to this, the dealers have reaped a good harvest, from the fact that 
they have had a better class of smelts, and received better prices. But perhaps I cannot do better 
than to give you a few extracts from letters sent me by gentlemen who take an interest in smelts. 
These are but a few of the many which have been sent, all expressing similar views. A gentleman, 
writing from Salem, says, “You have done a great and good work in increasing the smelts in this 
vicinity. It seems like old times to see the boys with their baskets well filled.” Dr. E. J. Thomp- 
son, writing from Lynn, says, “ It would do your soul good to come to Lynn and visit the wharves 
at the present time [October 12], and see the smelt-fishers at it, — old and young, rich and poor, 
split-bamboo and beanpoles, all together, and such smelt-fishing as they have not seen for years. 
Every one thought that smelt-fishing was played out; but now some of the best fishermen have 
caught as high as twenty and thirty dozen in one day.” 
Benj. P. Ware, Esq., writing from Marblehead, after speaking of the wholesale and wasteful 
methods of slaughtering fish with seines and trawls, especially in the spawing season, says: “Smelts, 
which were becoming quite scarce, have this fall been very abundant. In Swampscott, where 
smelts in previous years have been almost unknown, they have been taken in great numbers, 
many of them weighing half a pound each. This change is doubtless due to the close time and 
legislative Acts passed in relation to the catching of smelts.” 
