AMERICAN FISHES. 
180 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries groups of boats might have been 
seen, as at the present day, clustered together in the harbors, or near the 
outer shores, their crews busily engaged in hauling in the tinkers, and, 
occasionally, larger mackerel, which during the summer season found their 
way into those protected waters. It is not known when the custom of 
drailing for mackerel was first introduced, but it was, beyond question, the 
common method at the close of the last and the beginning of the present 
century, as it is in the present day in England, under such names as 
“whiffing,” “railing,” “drailing” or “ plummeting.” 
Captain Atwood writes : “In my boyhood, when I caught my first 
mackerel, nobody thought of jigging them. We then took them in the 
s»ame way as bluefish are caught. My first experience in mackerel fishing 
took place when I was a little boy, about 1815. I went out with two old 
men. One of them fished in the stern of the boat, and when it did not 
sail fast enough the other and myself—I was eight years old at the 
* 
time—had to row, in order, by the more rapid motion of the boat, to 
induce the fish to bite. They would not bite unless the line was towed. 
Two great long poles were run out, one just forward, in such a manner 
that our vessel had the appearance of a long-armed spider. The poles 
were straight, and one line was fastened at one part, and another line on 
the end of the pole, in order to have them separated.” 
“ The present mode of catching mackerel by drifting and tolling with 
bait did not come into general use until 1812. The gear for catching, 
previous to that, was a white hempen bob-line, as it was called, and the 
style of fishing was called ‘ bobbing ’ mackerel. These lines were some 
seven fathoms in length, with a leaden sinker two inches long and shaped 
like a pea-pod. At one end was a ganging about a foot long, for the 
hook. Every few minutes off would go the hook, and extra hooks were 
always in readiness to replace those lost. This mode continued until the 
year 1816, when Abraham Lurvey, of Pigeon Cove, discovered a method 
of running lead around the hooks, and which were afterward called jigs. 
This he kept secret for many months. The hooks then in use were nearly 
as large as the haddock hooks of to-day. The small lines and fly-lines 
did not come into use until about 1823. About this time the gaff was 
introduced, and was abandoned after being used some ten years.* 
* The mackerel gaff was used to some extent, by the hook and line fishermen, as late as 1865, and possibly 
even since that time. 
