The romance of the world's fisheries, interesting descriptions of the many & curious methods of fishing in all parts of the world

Front matter

THE ROMANCE

OF TH E WORLD'S

FISHERIES

Preface

IN an account of the world's fisheries it is impossible to use the word " fish " only in its strictly scientific meaning; for what are everywhere known as "fisheries " include the taking of many creatures which are not really fish, Whaling, sealing, turtle-catching, and pearl-diving must necessarily have a place in the following pages.

Little attempt has been made to treat the subject from the commercial or industrial point of view. The author has rather endeavoured to give an animated picture of the fisherman's life, of his methods, his hardships and adventures, his disappointments, and his hardly won successes. The best authorities have been consulted, but many of the details are drawn from the author's own experience.

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Chapter I Introductory

Fishing- an occupation to which uncivilised man would naturally turn — Seasons and preferences — Other products of the sea besides fish — A few words on fishing from a historical point of view . . . . ... 17

Chapter II

Various means of obtaining fish — The push-net — Rod and line — Bait — Means of getting nearer to the fish — The raft — The open boat — The smack — Tackle used in boat-fishing — Long lines and hand lines — Trawls, drift-nets, seines, moored nets, and dredges — Pots — Another important item : experience — The fascination of the fisherman's calling . 22

Chapter III

"Off" with the boats — The start — The fisherman's attitude towards strangers — An East Coast trawler — The net — The fisherman at sea — Shooting the trawl — Special "catches" — The net hauled up — Where the hard work comes in — The steam carrier — What is done with the catch — Steam-trawling — Little private ventures . . ... 30

Chapter IV Shrimping, Musselling, And Line-fishing

Shrimps — The push-net — On board a Dutch visschers-boot — Dutch fishermen — Preparations for boiling — Hauling up the shrimp-net — Emptying — The catch — Sorting — 'Ware crabs ! — And fox-fish — Boiling — Hot shrimps — Danger of the trade — Prawns and prawn-catching — Mussels — What becomes of

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them all — Transplanting — Mussels by the barge-load — Line-fishing — Hand lines — Long lines — Ready-baited hooks — Paying out the lines — " Bending-on" — Two or three miles of lines — Bringing in the catch — Longer lines — " Butters " . 42

Chapter V

The salmon — Annual migration — Jumping — Spawning — Fry, smolt, and grilse — The Columbian grounds — Trap-nets — Seines — Hauling in by horse-power — The fish-wheel — Salmon-fishing among the Indians — Canadian moored gill-nets — Scandinavian fishery — The Sogne and' Hardanger fjords — Natural salmon-traps — Seines and net-weirs — Lapps and Finns as fishers — The sea-swallow — Salmon-netting at home — Close time — Stake-nets and stow-nets . • • 59

Chapter VI

Angling — Salmon -fishing — Tackle — Ireland and Norway — Piscator fit, non nascitur — Casting — A real bite — A long spell of hard work — "Sulking" — Gaffing — Fishing in the Jotunfeld — High jumpers — To America for sport — The tarpon — Tarpon tackle — A nasty sea — A big leap — Towed along — Fairly hooked — Sharks ! — Other sport . • • 73

CHAPTER VII THE COD-FISHERY (i)

The Breton "Icelanders" — Seeing the fleet off — A twelve-hundred-mile voyage in a cockle-shell — Life on board — Iceland in sight — Cod-fishing — An average catch — A big catch in a calm — Cleaning and salting — Breaks in the monotony — Homeward bound . . 88

CHAPTER VIII THE COD-FISHERY (il)

The American cod-fishery — The Newfoundland Banks — Dory work — Hand-line fishing — Drawbacks to it — French trawling — No piracy allowed — Pulling up the trawl — Clearing and rebaiting — Cleaning and drying — The gill-net — Its special utility — Its mechanism . . ... 100

Chapter IX Page

Where the oyster is, and is not, found — The Essex and North Kent "flats" — Development — Re -stocking the beds — "Brood" — A day of a dredger's life — Description of the dredge — Hauling up — The oyster's companions in the dredge — Its enemies — Measuring up the "wash" — The collecting boat — Other kinds of oysters — Typhoid ! . . . 1 1 1

Chapter X United States Fish And Fishermen

The States fishermen — The " foreigners" — The spring mackerel-fishing — The "purse-seine" — Fishing by night — How the net is cleared — Shore-welrs — Line-fishing for mackerel — The herring — The mullet — A big catch — The "red snapper" — Other American fish . . . . 124

Chapter XI

The herring — The lugger — Night-work — Signs! — "Lythe" — Shooting the tackle — How the drift-net is worked — The trial shot — Shooting a "fleet" — The net filling — Hauling in — The first strike— A second shot — More than they can carry — "Maze," "cran," and "last" — Getting rid of the catch . . . , ... 133

Chapter XII

Possibilities of the Mediterranean fisheries — Migration of the anchovy — Shooting the seine for anchovies — The moored net — Some of its occupants — The fisherman's friends and enemies — Sharks — Saw-fish and sword-fish — The tunny — Setting the nets — Slaughtering the catch — Another Sicilian industry — Line-fishing . . ... 147

Chapter XIII

The Cornish fisherman — The pilchard — Shoaling — Drift-nets and seines — The "seine-boat" — Shooting the net — The stop-

II

PAGE seines — Sharks! — "Tucking" — Taking the fish ashore — The factory — The sturgeon — Russian sturgeon and sterlet fishing — Isinglass and caviare . . . . 156

Chapter XIV The Catching Of Lobsters, Crabs, And Whelks

Fish that are caught in pots — The lobster — Colonial fish — The Bergen and Christiansund lobster-fishery — Crayfish — Crabs — The hermit — Land-crabs — Tropical and fresh-water crabs — Crabbing — Whelks — Fishing with "trots" — Whelking as a trade— The boats— The pots— The fish . . . 167

Chapter XV

China, Japan, Siam, etc. — A fish-eating people— Fresh-water fishing — Chinese angling — Fishing with the help of cormorants — How the birds are trained — Good and bad divers — Two birds to one fish — The dip-net — River-fishing by hand — Sea fisheries ; the junk and the lorcha — A Portuguese colony — "Archers" and "fighting-fish" — Japan's fisheries — The salmon and trout . . . . . 179

Chapter XVI Some Remarks On The Irish Fisheries

Comparative poverty of the western fisheries — Possible reasons — Present state of the Irish fisheries— The Irish fisherman — Trawling and long-line fishing — Congers, sharks, and sea-cats — Trawling on rocky ground — ' ' Man overboard 1 " — Ling, halibut, and ray— Eels— Tory Island . . . . 191

Chapter XVII Some Strange Fish And Strange Fishermen

Decay of primitive methods— South American fisheries — The arapaima — Harpoons and tethered arrows — The armado — Catching fish on land — The diodon— Fishing in Tierra del Fuego — African river-fishing — The Indian mango-fish — The modern Galilean fisherman — South Sea Island fish — Proas and Hawaiian "outriggers" — Australian and Arctic fishing 203

Chapter XVIII Page

How pearls grow — Loose and fixed pearls — The fish that contain them— The Ceylon Banks — Native divers — The pearl fleet — Scene in the Gulf of Manaar— A noisy crew — The "shifts" — Method of lowering — Sharks — A curious superstition — Landing and piling the oysters — How they open — Varieties of pearls — Other grounds — Dredging for pearl-shells — The argentine . . . . . . 218

Chapter XIX

A profitable if risky industry — One or two historical details — The home of the whale — Old and new methods of catching him — Harpoons — " Blowing" — The whale's trail — Throwing the harpoon — A nerve-destroying trade — The tow-line — Other shots at the monster — A cut at the tail — The death — Cutting up — The whale's enemies — Rorquals and cachalots — A modern whaler and its equipment — The harpoon-gun and the bomb-lance — A disappointing whale — Various uses to which the carcass is devoted — Sperm oil and ambergris . 231

Chapter XX

What sponge is — Where it grows — Sponge-diving — The undressed diver — A "dressed" diver at work — His dress — The diver on the bottom — Signals — Coming up — Dredging for sponges — Awkward gear — Sponge-harpooning — The spy-glass — The Adriatic trade — Sponge-culture — Florida Keys — Sponge-hooking in the Bahamas . . . 250

Chapter XXI Dolphins, Porpoises, And Manatees

The dolphin — Misconceptions about it — Dolphin-catching among the Faroe islanders — Fresh- water dolphins : the Inia and the Soosoo — The grampus — Porpoises — Fishermen's hatred of them — The narwhal — Its tusk — An Iceland narwhal-hunt — The Greenlanders' method — The Caaing whale and the beluga — Trapping and seining belugas — The dugong and the manatee — A manatee-hunt . ... 265

Chapter XXII Page

Turtles and tortoises — The terrapin or snapper — Catching turtles with fish — The remora — Shooting with tethered arrows — Turtle-diving — Tortoise-shell — A horrible method of obtaining it — The hawk's-bill — Its shell — Seining for turtles in South America — The Galapagos tortoise — The green turtle — Method of taking him . ... 284

Chapter XXIII After The Seal And The Walrus

The pinnipeds — The seals and their young — Seal-hunting among the Eskimos — The seal as a fighter — The Eskimos' summer season — Varieties of seals — Sealing among civilised fleets — Methods — Dangers of the work — A seal-massacre — How the seal-colonies are founded — Sea-elephants, sea-lions, and sea-bears — The walrus — His enemies — A big catch — Modern methods of walrus-hunting . ... 297

H

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

A Dreaded Catch . . . . Frontispiece

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A Great Catch of Mackerel, Lowestoft . 28

Gutting the Fish on board a Danish Banks Trawler . 39

The Mussel-Baiters . . ... 54

Netting Salmon from Colombia River, Oregon, U.S.A. 62

Salmon-Netting in Norway . . ... 68

Salmon-Fishing for Pleasure in a Highland River . 74

Fishermen laying out Herring for sale at Lowestoft 134

Estimating a Catch of Herring in Norway . . .138

Herring-Driving in Norway . . . 144

Pilchard-Fishing . . . . . . 158

Fishing with Cormorants in China . . . 182

Fishing in Japan . . . . . . 188

Fishing on the Nile . . . . . 210

A Spider's Web as a Fishing-Net . ... 214

Eskimos Spearing Fish . . . , 216

Boats waiting near the Guardship at the Ceylon

Pearl Fisheries . . ... 220

A Group of Ceylon Pearl Divers . ... 228

i5

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Harpooning a Sperm Whale

Severing a Whale's Vertebral Column

Hauling up a Sponge-Diver .

Dolphin-Hunting

Turtle-Fishing

An Eskimo Method of Seal-Fishing .

PAGE

• 236

• 256 . 268 . 290

THE EOMANCE OF THE WOELD'S FISHEEIES

Chapter I Introductory

Fishing an occupation to which uncivilised man would naturally turn — Seasons and preferences — Other products of the sea besides fish — A few words on fishing from an historical point of view.

THE catching of fish is an occupation which must have arisen at a very early stage in the history of the human race ; for man's staple food is necessarily decided by his surroundings, and it was as natural for a maritime people to look to the sea as its provider, as it was for forest inhabitants to sustain life on the fruit of trees or the flesh of birds and beasts. Early man could not, or would not, cultivate the soil; therefore he must either content himself with food that cost him little or no trouble to obtain — vegetable products that did not call for cultivation, eggs, or shell-fish that lay on the shore — or else he must combine business with pleasure by obeying his instinct to hunt ; by living on fish, flesh, or fowl, the procuring of which had a seasoning of chance, b 17

INTRODUCTORY

or excitement, or danger in it. Often the land monster or the sea monster seemed to threaten him with death whether he hunted it or no ; therefore he felt driven to slay it in self-defence ; and, when slain, what was more natural than that its flesh should be eaten and its nonedible parts utilised as clothing, ornament, tool, or weapon ?

v When our fathers had learned the art of making and managing rafts or boats, they found that many fish which could not be obtained in shallow water might easily be caught at some distance from the shore. The appliances >r catching them — 'baited hooks, nets, and baskets made ( l skin or fibre or twigs — would suggest themselves, necessity being the mother of invention.

Then, as agriculture and the mechanical arts developed, it became the business of those who still refused to follow a land trade, to sell or barter the fish which they did not need to people who had not the time or the inclination to procure such food for themselves. And it was in this way that an industry began which, to-day in many countries, ranks in importance with agriculture, and often with manufactures.

By observation the fisherman or the fish-eater gradually learned that at one time of the year certain fish were more palatable or more plentiful than at another ; that during some months shell-fish, for example, were nutritious, during others poisonous ; thus the " season " for any special fish became recognised and defined. As the consumer's palate grew more discriminating, one fish was found to be richer in taste than another ; and so creatures

INTRODUCTORY

like the turbot, the sole, and the oyster were ruthlessly and greedily pursued, to the partial neglect of, say, the humbler herring and skate, which continued to increase and multiply, commanding but a poor market-price in comparison with their scarcer and more succulent brethren. Thus to-day the fishmonger who can afford to sell a herring for a halfpenny must charge a shilling for a sole.

From the further cultivation of arts and crafts, the man of the coast realised at length that fish had other profitable uses than those of the table ; from increased knowledge of navigation, from experiments in diving, and from watching the beach at low tide, he learned that the sea had other saleable commodities to offer besides fish in the strict sense. For ages he had adorned himself and his family with sealskin, sharks 1 teeth, shells, coral ; had converted fish-bones into knives and war-hatchets and needles and hooks ; had collected cowries for his currency, and amber to conjure with ; and perhaps it was not such a very wide step thence to the preserving and utilising of fish skins and oil, or to a systematic search for — and regular trade in — pearls, whalebone, sponge, or the purple dye secreted within the shell of the Tyrian murex.

From the time that the fisheries became once firmly established as a recognised industry, there is not a great deal to be said as to the history of their development. Probably the reason for this is that, unlike most trades, fishing does not easily lend itself to improvements and new fashions. The fisherman thinks that what was good

INTRODUCTORY

enough for his father is good enough for him. Companies may have taken the trade out of the hands of individuals ; steam-vessels may have ousted some of the old smacks ; but methods and implements generally have undergone but little alteration even in a couple of thousand years ; a net or a dredge or a pot or an enclosure is now what it was then. The few important modifications or improvements in gear will be dealt with presently.

Nor has political history much to tell us about the fisheries that would be of general interest. Henry I of England is supposed to have regarded the sturgeon as his exclusive property ; and we know that the salmon forms the subject of a clause in Magna Charta. It is generally believed that Biscayan whalers as far back as the fourteenth century fished off' the coast of what is now called Newfoundland, and even off Greenland and Spitzbergen. The Portuguese instituted the Grand Banks cod-fishery in the year 1500. In the time of Charles II, the British fisheries had so declined that the King, in 1662, offered £200 to every man who would fit out a " brisse," or Dutch herring-smack, within six months from the date of his proclamation.

Fishing-grounds have, of course, formed the subject of disputes between countries. In 1839 a treaty was signed between England and France to settle the exact boundaries of the oyster, and other, grounds, to which both nations laid claim ; and in 1854 a similar agreement was drawn up between our Government and that of the United States, relating to the Canadian fisheries.

INTRODUCTOEY

It is only within comparatively recent years that any serious step has been taken by Government to fix a close season for fish. At the present time our fisheries are under the control of local committees appointed by the Board of Trade.

Chapter II The Fisherman's Tools

Various means of obtaining fish — The push-net — Rod and line — Bait — Means of getting nearer to the fish — The raft — The open boat — The smack — Tackle used in boat-fishing — Long lines and hand lines — Trawls — drift-nets, seines, moored nets, and dredges — Pots — Another important item : experience — The fascination of the fisherman's calling.

BEFORE dealing with special fisheries it may be well to give a brief description in outline of the " plant," so to speak, which constitutes the fisherman's capital ; the means most generally in use for transporting the fish from their home in the sea or river to the storehouse or the market. Less commonly used appliances will receive separate mention later.

Obviously the simplest method of procuring fish is by picking them off the beach at low water. It is in this way that millions of cockles, mussels, and periwinkles are obtained every year; in many parts of the world oysters are obtained in the same way. Such creatures as these offer no resistance ; make no attempt to escape their captors ; but as soon as we come to the more lively fish that may be caught at low tide or in very shallow water — shrimps, for instance — some mechanical contrivance for securing them at once becomes necessary.

In the case of shrimps, this takes the form of the push-net, with the sight of which we are all familiar — a simple net-bag, kept open by a wooden framework to which a long pole is fastened.

The ordinary vertebrate fish, whether of the sea or the river, may also be caught from the land ; but, as everybody knows, he is too timid or too wary to allow himself to be beguiled by other than artificial means more or less elaborate. From the banks of rivers and lakes, or from jetties and pier-heads, opportunities for large catches are rare ; wherefore it is better to try patiently to secure the fish singly. This is done by means of a hook, usually barbed, fastened to a line long enough to reach that part of the water — surface, middle, or bottom — where the fish angled • for is likely to be found. In fishing at any appreciable distance from the bank, the line is suspended over the water from the tip of a long rod which scarcely calls for minute description. To entice the fish, some bait, natural or artificial, living or dead, which will appeal to his curiosity or greed, is fixed to the hook, generally in such a manner as partially to conceal it. This bait varies according to the fish sought and the depth at which he swims : broadly speaking, for angling at or near the surface, imitation flies are used ; for mid- water angling, real or sham fish ; for fishing near the bottom, dough, worms, or gentles (the larvae obtained from flyblown meat).

To these methods "land" fishing may be said to be mainly confined ; and we pass on to the consideration of the more important branch, which presses into its service not only nets and lines, but also a means of getting at somewhat closer quarters with those fish which cannot be caught very near to the shore — boats and ships.

The raft, the rudest type of water conveyance, is now, except by some of the Japanese and Chinese fishermen, used only by savages and boys. It has no particular shape or construction, and often no means of steering. It is said that the Phoenicians, who colonised Corsica and other islands near Italy, had no better craft in which to reach their destination ; if so, the journey must have been a work of time and patience.

The open boat, the shape of which varies only triflingly in different parts of the world, comes next. Being of such light build and not affording much storage accommodation, one often thinks of it as merely an accessory to larger fishing-boats ; yet on most coasts it is to be found used independently ; and, for certain kinds of work — line-fishing, crabbing, etc. — it has a world-wide popularity. It draws so little water that it can be safely used where larger boats would go aground or strike the rocks ; often its very lightness is its strongest recommendation ; for, where a larger vessel may have to struggle with the wind or get becalmed for want of it, the open boat, propelled by stout oarsmen, can force a passage with more or less ease. Fitted with a "lug," i.e. a square sail fixed to a yard that hangs obliquely to the mast, it is used along the east coast for fishing on a small scale. A long open boat provided with two lug-sails, known as a Scotch lugger, is still a great favourite with the North Sea herring-fishers.

Next comes the type of vessel most associated in our minds with the sea-fisheries — the decked boat or smack. More often than not she is " cutter-rigged, 1 ' having a single mast with main-sail, top-sail, jib-sail, and fore-sail. Yawls, or yawl-rigged smacks, only differ from the other kind in having a second mast aft — the mizzen. The smack has a cabin furnished with a stove and three or four bunks, while, for storage purposes, the ample spaces below hatches in the fore part of the ship are used. Larger decked boats — schooners, brigs, and other square-rigged craft — are employed in the whaling and sponge trade, and also by the American cod-fishers ; but as a rule these are not so much actual fishing-boats as storehouses, lodging-houses for the crew, and workshops. They are supplied with a number of small rowing-boats which do the catching work and unload their cargo into the larger vessel at night.

Now as to the gear or tackle necessary in fishing from boats. It may be classified under three heads : lines, nets, and pots. Lines may be of the simpler sort, whether with rod and winch, as used in tarpon-fishing, or only intended to be held in the hand ("hand lines 11 ), such as are employed on the east coast for cod, and on the south for whiting ; or they may be of the more complicated kind known as " long lines. 11 The last named are used by the Scotch and North Country fishermen for haddocks, and by many of the American cod-crews ; they are furnished with hooks which vary in size and number, and which — like hand and rod lines — are baited according to the class of fish sought ;

the baits most commonly in use being mussels, whelks, hermit-crabs, and squid or cuttle-fish. Long lines, when joined up to form a series, often stretch for more than a mile, and carry as many as four or five thousand hooks.

Under the head of nets are included trawls, drift-nets, seines, moored nets, and dredges. The traivl (or trail) net, the most important and elaborate of these, is a huge meshed bag which runs down to a point, and the mouth of Avhich is fastened to a pole or " beam," ordinarily about forty feet long. At either end of the beam, and at right angles to it, is a sort of triangular broad hoop of iron, measuring about three feet from base to apex. These hoops — " trawl-heads " as they are called — serve the three-fold purpose of sinking the net ; of supporting the beam, keeping it well off the bottom ; and of gliding over the sand like the runners of a sledge, as the boat moves. The same net, on a somewhat smaller scale and with finer mesh-work, is used for shrimping.

A drift-net is a much less pretentious arrangement, being a long wall (" fleet ") of small single nets fastened together in a line. Buoyed above with corks and bladders so that it may hang perpendicularly in the water, the series of nets drifts gently along at the tail of a boat, and a shoal of fish swimming straight at it, or driven towards it by the current, would soon be inextricably fixed in the meshes.

The seine (the sagcne of the old Greek fishermen) is a plain net, corked above and leaded below ; the top level, but the bottom slightly curved ; it may be of any size, from the Cornish pilchard-seine, which is twelve hundred feet long and sixty feet deep, to the little net worked by the fisher-girls in Brittany, or the ground-seine commonly found in the Channel sprat-fishing. In a general way the seine is shot from a rowing-boat, and is dragged ashore in a semicircle by ropes fastened to its two ends. Moored nets are those, no matter of what shape, which are fixed in certain spots by means of anchors. They may be seen in great numbers across the mouths of Scotch, French, and Scandinavian rivers, where the tide, whether ebbing or flowing, soon drives the fish against them. The dredge, used principally for oysters, is a very small bag-like net, the under part of which is composed of wire rings and the upper of small string meshes. It is supported by a triangular heavy iron frame, to which a stout rope long enough to reach to the bottom is attached. The dredge is thrown overboard, allowed to scrape along the sand for a few minutes, hauled up, emptied, and thrown over again.

The third class of contrivance, pots, are used for the snaring of crabs, lobsters, etc. They are made of wicker, or of network stretched on an iron frame ; are baited with fish or meat, and are sunk singly or in rows by means of heavy stones, their position being marked by cork buoys.

To this list of fishermen's requisites must be added another item — experience. Every amateur angler, whether it be the small boy who fishes for minnows with cotton and a bent pin, or the stalwart sportsman who whips the Scandinavian streams for salmon, is aware that, without a knowledge both of the habits and whereabouts of his fish, and also of the proper manipulation of his tackle, he will never catch anything except by sheer chance. And such knowledge, important as it is, constitutes only a portion of what is essential to the professional fishermen of civilised countries.

Before the sea-fisher is at liberty to bestow many thoughts upon either fish or tackle, he must learn to be a sailor ; must understand the mystery of tides and currents and winds ; be well acquainted with the nature of the ground on which he has to work ; and be prepared to perform every conceivable duty on board, from swabbing the deck to steering the smack through a squall or a fog. Even then his education is by no means complete. Apart from the thousand and one minor repairs to boat and tackle for which he is responsible, apart even from the many tricks of the trade that he must know before he can secure and land his catch, almost every class of fisherman has special duties to perform in connection with the fish after they are caught : cleaning, sorting, packing, drying, salting — all of it work, that sounds and looks far easier than it is.

From this it will be seen that the fisherman's life is not a lazy one ; neither is it a very safe one, especially where open-boat fishing is concerned. It is, moreover, precarious in the extreme ; too much or too little wind may keep the boats ashore for days at a time ; an overstocked market may render a whole day's catch valueless, except as manure ; a sea-monster or passing ship may ruin fifty pounds 1 worth of gear in fifty seconds.

But there is a brighter side to the picture. There are strokes of luck to be considered — extraordinary catches, at a time when prices are high — a few of which will make the fisherman comparatively wealthy. Of the healthiness of the occupation there can be no two opinions ; some of the finest imaginable specimens of manhood can easily be picked from among British, Scandinavian, or American fishermen ; men of seventy years of age may be seen working with the speed and energy of lads of twenty.