330 
BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
I knew an old one-handed fisherman who had a way of his own to draw up his fish. When he 
hooked a fish he would run the length of his line on the ice, the hole being cut so as not to catch 
the fish as he passed out. 
About here they use for bait the flesh of the smelt. The cut is made beginning at the vent on 
the belly and cutting away from the belly-fin for about three quarters of an inch. Smelt’s eyes 
are also often put on the end of the barb, and I think it pays to cover this up, but not many do it. 
This method the correspondent termed “fishing a la Canuck,” to the descrip- 
tion of which he added the following: 
If in a sitting or stooping posture, the fisherman assumes an erect position, on hooking a fish, 
at the same time raising the short fish-pole to the height of the shoulder with the right hand. Now 
the two-foot blank pole held in the left hand engages the line near the ice from the opposite or right 
side, and is immediately raised to the height of the shoulder, in a semi-circle described to the left 
from below, while the right hand with the fish-pole, decends, describing a complementary semi-circle 
to the right, from above to the ice, passes in front of the body to the left, and engages the line near 
the ice from the further side or left. When one hand is up, the other is always down. The arms 
are held far apart and rigid in order to keep the line taut. The same motion is gone through, only 
backwards, in holding a skein of yarn on the thumbs of both hands, while (say your sister) winds it 
into ball. Reverse this motion, that is reel it from the ball of yarn to your two thumbs, and you 
have the same motion nearly. 
In a report upon an inquiry concerned with the fisheries of inland waters, in 
reference to the smelt fishery of Lake Champlain, an agent of the Bureau of Fisheries 4 
wrote: 
This fishery is carried on between Crown Point and Essex, the most important points being 
Westport and Port Henry. As soon as sufficient ice forms the fishermen carry small huts out to 
favorable positions on the lake, each hut provided with a small stove and a bench or chair, and 
having about a third of the bottom floored. The fish are caught with hook and line through a 
hole cut in the ice. For a time the “ice fish” caught in this part of the lake, which are exceptionally 
large (examples 15 and 18 inches long having been captured), were thought by the fisherman to be 
a different species from the smelt, as the fish taken in other parts of the lake and known as smelts 
average about 7 inches in length. At times the catch of “ice fish” is quite heavy, but in 1902 
it was small, there being but few fishermen engaged. Nearly all who participate do so because 
they have no regular occupation, and as last year was a busy and prosperous one in nearly every 
town and the lake shore there were but few persons out of employment, consequently but few 
fishermen. In the fishing season at certain hours in the day the buyers visit the huts, gather up the 
fish caught and bring them to the towns, where they are boxed or barrelled for shipment. 
The earliest statistics of the ice fishery of Lake Champlain are those of 1894 and 
1895. These were collected by the agent of the Bureau of Fisheries who made the 
above report. These later statistics are after an interval, then, of some seven and 
eight years. 
In 1894 the catch of smelts on the New York side of the lake was 33,170 pounds, 
valued at $3,957; in 1895, for the same locality, 39,076 pounds, valued at $4,506. 
In 1902 the catch was 17,600 pounds, valued at $12,160. From 1894 to 1895 there 
was an increase of 5,906 pounds and a gain in value of $549, with a slight decrease 
in the price per pound. In the seven years from 1895 to 1902 there was a falling 
off in the catch amounting to 21,476 pounds and $2,346 in value, but there was 
some increase in price per pound. 
4 The commercial fisheries of the interior lakes andYivers of New York and Vermont. By John N. Cobb. Report, U. S. 
Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, 1903 (1905), p. 230. Washington. 
