Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 1883<dth="90%" valign="top"> <a href="usfc01.html">back</a> <font size=+1 face=arial> <p><b>BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. VOL 3 1883 <p>Notes on the Fisheries of Gloucester Mass. June 4 - August 2, 1883 </b> <br>By S. J. Martin. [Letters to Prof. S. F. Baird.] <p>The amount of fish landed here during the month of May was as follows: 105 arrivals from George's Bank, with 2,098,000 pounds of salt cod and 68;550 pounds fresh halibut; 41 arrivals from Western Bank, with 1,846,000 pounds salt cod and 194,000 pounds fresh halibut; 26 arrivals from Grand Banks, with 750,000 halibut; 18 arrivals with 357,000 pounds haddock; 33 arrivals with shore fish. Of these last there were 252,000 pounds cod, 126,000 pounds hake, 118,000 pounds haddock, and 8,000 pounds cask. There were 12 arrivals with salt pollock, a total of 484,000 pounds. These were caught with seines off Chatham. Ten vessels arrived with 358 barrels of salt mackerel; these were taken in weirs in the vicinity of Gloucester. Fifty barrels of fresh mackerel were sold also. <br>GLOUCESTER, MASS., June 4, 1883. <p>The mackerel fleet has returned from its southern cruise with poor results. Three vessels which left here April lst did not catch a mackerel. They were hard to catch. One vessel set a seine 74 times, and <p>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ <p>BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. Page 173 <p>yet caught no fish. The difficulty in catching them is charged to the unusual transparency of the water. Captain Cohart says that he lowered a towel to the depth of 20 fathoms, and then could see it plainly. Captain Coas says he could see the purse-weight on the seine when it was 20 fathoms down. They all say, it was impossible to seine fish in such water. The large mackerel have gone east, and many are being taken in the weirs at Barrington; N. S. There are small mackerel from Cape Cod to Mount Desert. They are large enough for No. 2's, but are of a different school from the mackerel caught last year. <p>Pogies are abundant in Boston Bay. Five barrels have been taken in the traps at Kettle Island, and a vessel caught 40 barrels with seine this morning. They are of small size. Last year there was one pogy caught. Yesterday they were schooling close in to the shore of Norman's Woe. <p>Capt. Robert Douglass was in this business twenty years, and he says that he saw as large schools yesterday as he did twenty years ago. It has been so long since pogies were here that people are not prepared to catch them; but some of the small vessels are getting their seines ready. A telegram was received here this morning stating that the weirs at Hyannis, on Cape Cod, were full of pogies. <p>A large fleet has been at Cape North after cod. They are coming home with full fares. One vessel, which had been gone seven weeks, arrived this morning with 140,000 pounds of cod. <br>GLOUCESTER, MASS., June 6,1883. <p>Mackerel are scarce. Vessels have been from Cape Cod to Cape Sable and the Bay of Fundy, and yet found no mackerel. All the large mackerel have passed down the Nova Scotian coast. They have been caught in traps at Cape Sable for the past three weeks. The schooner Polar Wave arrived this morning from the Grand Banks, and reports sailing through mackerel in large schools to the eastward of Sable Island, and that they seemed to be going northward. Those on the New England coast are small. Six barrels of them were sold today for $8 a barrel. Last year at this time they would have sold at $4. <p>Pogies are plentiful. Salem Harbor is full of them, and 160 barrels were seined off the mouth of the harbor. Three large salmon have been taken in the traps at Kettle Island, weighing 22 and one fourth, 20, and 18 and one half pounds, respectively. <p>Six vessels have left here for Greenland after halibut. On George's Bank fish are scarce at present. The Cape North fleet has returned with good fares, and vessels are doing well on the shore fishing-grounds, catching cod, hake, and cusk. Thirty sail have gone to the Grand Banks after cod, and 3 have started for the Bay of Saint Lawrence after mackerel. A large fleet will go there after July 4 if there are then no mackerel on this coast. Half a barrel of squid was caught in a trap in the harbor here last night. <p>I inclose the following newspaper item on the steam menhaden fisheries: <p>"NEW BEDFORD, June 5.-The greatest week's work at this time in the season was made by Messrs. J. Church & Co.'s steam fishing fleet last week. The Joseph Church, Jemima Boomer, A. M. Hathaway, and George W. Humphrey nearly every day were loaded almost to the water's edge. The George W. Humphrey brought in 2,200 barrels on Saturday, and the A. M. Hathaway the same number. The catch was made in the Seconet River. The first of last week this gang were fishing back of Long Island Sound, but as the fish worked this way the fleet followed them to Seconet River. The catch last week amounted to about 19,000 barrels, and the Narragansett oil works at Portsmouth are consequently running day and night. While the George W. Humphrey was coming up from below Long Island on Wednesday night, loaded hold and deck, she encountered a heavy sea which swept her deck load of 800 barrels of menhaden into the water, which probably was the means of saving the steamer." <br>GLOUCESTER, MASS., June 14,1883. <p>Since my last letter mackerel have come on the coast in considerable numbers. During the past week there have been thirty-five arrivals with 4,840 barrels of salt mackerel. On last Thursday and Friday (June 14 and 15) there were thirty-one arrivals in Boston with 4,000 barrels of fresh mackerel. The mackerel are small--smaller than those of last year. Most of them have been caught from 20 to 40 miles east southeast of Thatcher's Island. Two vessels came in last night from the southeast part of Cashe's with 460 barrels--most of them larger mackerel. Mackerel have got through spawning; among 100 barrels of them landed at the canning factory I saw no spawn. The weather has been unfavorable for fishing during the last four days--mostly thick fog; with fair weather there would have been a good catch. Mackerel sold to-day for $6.25 a barrel--with the barrel out of pickle, and no inspection. <p>Pogies are abundant along shore. The small boats catch enough in their nets for bait, which is what they have not done before for five years. The weirs at Portsmouth were full of pogies last Monday; and they have been caught as far east as Portland. <br>GLOUCESTER, MASS., June 21, 1883. <p>The amount of fish landed at Gloucester during the month of June was as follows: George's Bank cod, 1,579,000 pounds; George's halibut, 4,550 pounds; Western Bank cod, 3,525,000 pounds; Western Bank halibut, 95,000 pounds; Cape North cod, 2,200,000 pounds; shore fish, consisting equally of cod, cusk, and hake, 1,355 `000 pounds; fresh halibut caught on Grand Banks, 924,000 pounds; mackerel landed, 12,755 pounds. Two hundred and niuet,y-five barrels of pogies were caught in seines at the mouth of Gloucester Harbor , and 88 barrels of them were taken in weirs in the harbor; 78 barrels of mackerel were caught in <p>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ <p>BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 175 <p>weirs in the harbor, and 220 barrels of herring were caught among the mackerel in seines. <br>GLOUCESTER, MASS., July 1, 1883. <p>I will give a few notes on mackerel: On June 24 large mackerel were plentiful on Cashe's Bank. They lasted for two days there, then they disappeared and have not been seen' there since. The vessels which were on Cashe's did well, some of them catching as much as 200 barrels in the two days. Small mackerel came along the coast, from Cape Cod to the Bay of Fundy, about June 30. They are numerous but very small, averaging about 6 inches long. On July 2 a school of large ones appeared in Boston Bay. The traps at Kettle Island and Gloucester caught 200 barrels of them, but after one night they disappeared. Ten vessels have gone to the Bay of Saint Lawrence after mackerel, though no mackerel of any account have been caught there yet. One vessel was there a fortnight and caught none. I think mackerel will be caught soon on our coast. The harbor here was full of small mackerel which were schooling. <br>GLOUCESTER, MASS., July 8, 1883. <p>On July 5 and 6 a school of small mackerel was in the harbor. The weirs, eight in number, caught 500 barrels, 1,200 fish to a barrel. On the 13th and 14th a school of still smaller mackerel came into the harbor. It takes 2,000 of these fish for a barrel. The weirs in the harbor to-day have an average catch of 50 barrels. There are 4 barrels of large mackerel to 50 barrels of the remainder. <p>James Tarr & Bros. bought all the mackerel in the weirs at $1 a barrel. They intend to salt them round, as they do herring, for an experiment, and try to find a market for them. <p>Large mackerel are scarce, and the vessels are doing poorly. Fifteen sail have gone to the Bay of Saint Lawrence after mackerel, but the news from the bay is not favorable. Small mackerel are plentiful from Cape Cod to the Bay of Fundy, inshore as well as offshore. It seems too bad to kill them. The vessels set their seines around a school of mackerel and catch perhaps 100 barrels. They then pick out 10 barrels of them and throw the rest overboard. Some vessels which had been gone four weeks returned with but 40 barrels. <p>The mackerel fleet is spread along the eastern shore from Cape Cod to Cape Sable, and they report nothing but small mackerel. At Kettle Island, Manchester, and Gloucester, within a-distance of 10 miles, there. are 17 weirs set. This morning they averaged 50 barrels of small mackerel apiece, and some of the weirs were very full. <br>GLOUCESTER, MASS., July 15, 1883. <p>The vessels which went to George's Bank for cod have done well. A large school of cod has been on the western part of this bank. The fishermen call this the "squid" school, because the fish are full of squid <p>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ <br>176 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. <p>when caught. Vessels have been supplied with squid from the weirs at Sandwich and Barnstable Bay. The squid caught this year are of the same kind as those caught at Newfoundland, having no bones in them. They are the first of that kind caught on this coast for 10 years. Vessels catch some with a squid-gig on the Bank. Some of the vessels, took as much as 50,000 pounds of large cod in six days, using squid for bait. <br>GLOUCESTER, MASS., July 15,1883. <p>Large mackerel are scarce, but small ones are plentiful all along the coast. Some vessels arrive with only 30 or 40 barrels after being absent for three weeks. A large fleet has gone to the Bay of Saint Lawrence after mackerel, and two vessels went there to fish for mackerel with hooks. Two vessels have left mackerel-catching and gone after cod, while two other mackerel vessels belonging to Boston have hauled up. The schooner J. J. Clark arrived home with 230 barrels of mackerel caught 120 miles to the eastward (east by south) of Thatcher's Island. They were all caught in 10 days, after which the school disappeared. Large mackerel.have been caught on the coast, and it is. hard to tell where they have gone. <p>Some think they are at the bottom. The schooner Maud F. Leighton, fishing for cod on the northwest part of George's Bank, caught a large No. l mackerel on a cod-hook in 45 fathoms. The captain states that some of the large cod had two or three large mackerel in them when caught. My opinion is that as we have had heavy rains for the last three weeks, this has sunk the seed which the mackerel eat into deep water, and so they leave the surface to feed on it. Four years ago things looked as badly for the mackerel fishermen as they do now, but the vessels did well after August 1. mackerel bring a high price. They sold yesterday for $16 a barrel for a small lot of mackerel, large rimmed. <br>GLOUCESTER, MASS., July 22, 1883. <p>Yesterday there were eight vessels in from Grand Banks, with 822,000 pounds salt cod; ten vessels from George's, averaging 35,000 pounds; four from Western Bank, with 110,000 salt cod ; four from the shore grounds, with 80,000 pounds of mixed salt fish; and one from Grand Banks, with 20,000 pounds halibut. <p>A large school of big cod is on the western part of George's Bank, in from 35 to 75 fathoms. It is the first time for twelve years that coct have been caught on George's Bank. in 40 fathoms. Generally they have been caught in deep water duringJune, July, and August. Strange to say, there are no dogfish on the western part of the Bank. The George's, fishermen make the trip in twelve or fourteen days; one vessel came in this morning with 40,000 pounds of salt cod, after having been gone but seven days. The Grand Banks vessels are usually gone about seven weeks for a trip. <p>A few large mackerel are being caught in the weirs in the harbor here. <p>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ <p>BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 177 <p>Vol. III, No. 12. Washington, ID. C. Aug. 31, 1 SS3. <p>I inclose a couple of newspaper slips relating to the fisheries: <p>"Wednesday morning, July 18, the menhaden steamer Annie L. Wilcox, of the Wilcox Company, Mystic, made an immense haul of edible fish. The seine was set off Amagansett, about 15 miles to westward of Montauk light, and the haul resulted in the capture of about 30 tons of weakfish, that would average three pounds apiece. It took about an hour and a half to get the fish on board the steamer, and the haul was without any difficulty. It was the largest cargo of fish ever taken to New London." <p>" The report of W. Z. King, surveyor of customs at Greenport, L. I, shows that for the quarter ending June 30, 44,000,000 menhaden were rendered at the fish factories, 1,375 barrels of oil made, 4,400 tons of fish-scrap made and 230 tons of edible fish marketed. The number of menhaden rendered does not include several millions taken in pounds and shore seines and not taken to the factories. The yield of oil is the smallest ever known for the quantity of fish rendered, averaging but 1.12 gallons per 1,000." <br>GLOUCESTER, MASS., July 24, 1883. <p>During the month of July 123 vessels arrived in Gloucester with salt mackerel, amounting to 14,566 barrels; 1,853 barrels of small mackerel, and 124 barrels of large mackerel were caught in traps. The mackerel catchers also landed 300 barrels of small mackerel. One hundred and forty barrels of large herring, caught with seines on the Seal Island grounds, were landed at Gloucester. One hundred and thirteen vessels from George's brought 2,118,000 pounds of cod and 35,710 pounds of halibut. Twenty-six vessels from the Western Banks brought 1,321,000 pounds of cod, 13,850 pounds of salt halibut, and 1,000 pounds of fresh halibut. Twenty-five vessels from the Grand Banks landed 2,762,000 pounds of salt cod and 37,000 pounds of salt halibut; 21 vessels from Grand Banks landed 487,000 pounds of fresh halibut; 32 shore fishing vessels landed 180,000 pounds of salt cod, 99,000 pounds of salt cusk, 50,000 pounds of salt hake, and 800 pounds of salt pollock. Five hundred quintals of dried fish (mixed) were brought from Maine by freight. <p>The papers report that very large catches of menhaden were made by the Long Island fish steamers last week. "The fish were along the coast covering hundreds of acres. The factories at the east end of the island were choked with fish and have been running day and night. The bay fishermen have also done better than any previous time this season. At the Newport factory 2,000,000 fish were received and rendered in three days. The menhaden were never before known to be so plentiful" <br>GLOUCESTER, MASS., August 2, 1883. <p>Bull. U. S. F. C., 83-12 <p>-------------------------------------------------------------------- <p><a href="usfc01.html">Back</a> <p> </td> </TR> </table> </body></html>