FYKE NETS AND FYKE-NET FISHERIES. 
311 
GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW OF THE FYKE-NET FISHERIES OF THE UNITED 
STATES. 
GENERAL IMPORTANCE AND EXTENT. 
The fyke net is one of the most important means of capture employed in the 
fisheries of the United States. It is more or less extensively used in nearly every 
coast and lake State, and a very large part of the food-fish consumed in the country 
is caught in this form of net. In point of productiveness it is of less importance 
than such passive kinds of apparatus as the pound net and weir, but in proportion 
to the cost of construction and operation it compares favorably with these forms. 
The fyke net is used in greatest numbers in the Middle Atlantic region and on the 
Great Lakes. It is not extensively employed in New England, except in Connecticut; 
it is only sparingly used in the South Atlantic States; it is entirely absent from the 
coastal regions of the Gulf States, and on the Pacific coast it is found only in Cali- 
fornia, where there is an unimportant fishery. The State having the largest number 
of fyke nets is Maryland, but the most important fishery is in New York, after which 
come Maryland, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and New Jersey. 
The magnitude of the fyke-net fisheries of the United States is perhaps not fully 
appreciated, nor is their importance as a source of food supply fully understood. 
The following tables will therefore prove instructive; they show, for each State, 
the number of fyke-net fishermen, the number and value of fyke nets and boats 
employed, and the quantity and value of products taken. It will of course be under- 
stood that all of the fishermen shown do not depend on fyke T net fishing for a liveli- 
hood; many of them operate fyke nets in connection with other fisheries; with many 
fishing of any kind is only a secondary consideration, and only a few maybe regarded 
as professional fyke-net fishermen. The same applies to the boats, which bear about 
the same relation to the fishery that the fishermen do. The figures relate to the years 
1891 or 1892, except in the New England States, statistics for which are not available 
for a later year than 1889. The information contained in the tables is based on personal 
inquiries conducted by the field agents of theU. S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries. 
The first table shows that in the year named 2,304 persons were engaged in fyke- 
net fishing in 16 coast and lake States: of these, 1,699 were on the Atlantic coast, 32 
on the Pacific coast, and 573 on the Great Lakes. 
From the second table it is seen that 25,715 fyke nets, valued at $224,300, and 
1,774 boats, valued at $60,552, were employed, the total capital devoted to the industry 
being $284,852; of the nets, 22,698 were set on the Atlantic seaboard, 49 in the waters 
of the Pacific coast, and 2,968 in the Great Lakes. 
The catch, as given in the third table, amounted to 12,268,975 pounds, for which the 
fishermen received $302,441; of this quantity, 5,827,432 pounds, valued at $176,919, 
were caught on the Atlantic coast, 194,647 pounds, worth $5,116, on the Pacific coast, 
and 6,246,896 pounds, having a value of $120,406, in the lake region. 
