252 
BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
hard and blowing harder, but my fire was roaring inside, and I was tolerably comfortable. Sud- 
denly, along came one of those zephyrs that love to play up and down the Maine coast. It seemed 
to think that I was cutting things a little too fast around there, and it stopped at my hut, got 
a leverage on my grapples, and the next instant hut, fisherman and stove were moving off at 
a lively speed. The front part of the stove — which was not much more than a toy stove, being 
only two and-a-half feet long — dropped into one of the holes in the ice, and the whole business went 
down among the smelt. We were scudded along for a hundred yards, when my house came in 
contact with another fisherman’s house. This called a sudden halt, and I took advantage of it to 
crawl hastily out. The collision loosened the grapples on the other house, and in a moment both 
were flying along over the ice in all parts of the inlet. The gale lasted for not more than ten min- 
utes, but the whole smelt-fishing village had been moved about a mile from its site when it ended. 
That little episode convinced me that it would be more pleasant for me to leave smelt-fishing until 
next May or June, and then resume it on a convenient stream; so I struck my tent and cut sticks 
for Belfast. 
“I believe smelt-fishing is becoming more popular every year, and even the ladies are mani- 
festing a willingness to brave its risks and, sometimes, its hardships. There was a party of three 
ladies and gentlemen from Boston camped on the ice when I came away.” 
Later that season George W. Singer (1884) wrote: 
I read in your issue of Feb. 20 [Forest and Stream] an account of smelt fishing in Saco, and I 
think an account of the same in another town in Maine may be of interest. I left Waldorough 
[sic., meaning Waldoborough], Me., seven weeks ago. There were then about sixty shanties on the 
river. They are neat little houses of 24-inch stuff, and vary from 4x6 feet to 6 x 10. A cousin and 
myself fished in a shanty 6 x 10, and we used twelve lines. From Dec. 26 to Jan. 20 we took from 
fifteen to forty pounds every day, usually averaging in size about nine to the pound. We fished 
about four hours each day, just before and after low water. I left for home Jan. 22, but I have 
learned that there has been not more than a week since when the smelts did not bite. We use a 
great variety of bait, but nothing attracts them like marine worms or clam worms. 
In his report on the sea and shore fisheries of Maine for 1886, Commissioner 
Counce stated that during the winter months the shipping of smelts had become 
quite an important business in Maine, many thousand pounds of this little fish being 
sent out of the State during the winter and spring. Two years later the American 
Angler, for February 25, 1888 (p. 126), contained the following notice: 
Tons of smelts are being sent daily from Bath, Me., to the New York and Boston markets. 
The fishermen have erected a village of shanties on the ice in Back River, Arrowsic. The ice 
serves as flooring for the shanties, which are large enough to contain two men and a stove. A 
small hole is cut through the ice and fisherman plies his vocation indoors. Some of the smelters 
who fish in the open air are protected from the chilling blasts by screens of cotton cloth stretched 
between two posts. When the weather is cold they build bonfires on the ice to keep them warm. 
Most any afternoon from 75 to 200 men and boys make up the army of smelters and they are a 
jovial set. They get from four to five cents a pound for what they catch, and they earn from $1 
to $4 a day each during the smelting season, which lasts during the winter months. 
The report on the sea and shore fisheries of Maine for the same year (Counce, 
1888) stated that “this little fish is caught in weirs and in large quantities in t his 
State, and shipped to Boston, New York and Philadelphia, at a profit in the fall and 
winter.” Two years later (April 10, 1890), Forest and Stream, quoting from an 
exchange (Gloucester Daily Times), said: 
Old fishermen say that smelts have not been so abundant in the Kennebec River for twenty- 
five years as they have been this winter. 
