The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1880-04-24

/ cells have been thrown into the boat by
Il dexterous jerk Of the net where mu-
| tilated shad was hanging. | have seen
four cells fall out of the abdominal cavity
| of Il Shad, when no cells were visible
when the fish came over the gunnel.-
! They had devoured the viscera, which
seems almost to be the first portion
sought by them.
The habit is to run the net as soon as
it is all out. and take the fish out imme-
diately, before they can be injured by
the cells. The ecls never mesh. they are
too slippery to get entangled. In the
shoal fishing. when the weather becomes
warm. the eel cuts, as these are called,
often outnumber the marketable shad
The fishermen salt down the better ones
for their winter food.
The net is run twice or three times
and is then taken up. Little else than
shad are taken few striped bass and Il
few suckers are occasionally found. The
captures. to each boat with two men.
number from water hauls to several
hundred Shad.
After the first tides fishing the boats
anchor. Very often several tie fast to an
anchored one. and the men while away
the hours to the next tide in gossip and
EARNING spinning, OF go to sleep in the
bottom of the boat. 1t often happens,
when anchored apart from the rest, that
the two boatmen ''oversleep the tide,
| and find themselves. in the small hours
of the morning, chilly and solitary in the
middle of the bay.
Quiet and harmony is the ordinary state
for good berths sometimes arOuses dis
sension. An attempt to anticipate the
line of boats in laying out the nets at too
early stage of the tide calls forth sud
den and certain penalty. Not only the
boats on each side, but some of those
| from distance. crowd around and unite
availing. the offender is hemmed in by
the boatmen, who in a half iocose man
ner, yet with a fully in earnest purpose.
set their nets across the line of direction
he has started i'll surrounding him.
If he is still obstinate enough to persist,
or at attempt to cut the nets which are
sturdy boatman is apt to belabor him
into reason with an oar, public opinion
favoring a certain amount of this kind of
punishment.
The boats used in the head of the bay
are small, and the mutton-leg' sails
have no provision for rcefing. The fore
sail is much the larger, and sail is short
ened by unstepping the foremost and put
ting the mainsail in its place. At the
approach of 4 squall, they hurriedly pull
in the nets, and scatter like Il shoal of
of mullets when aporpoise appears among
them. They get caught out occasionally,
and getting to the lee of the shoal or the
island, they sometimes lie with the Kill
lock out all day.
AS the season draws to a close the en-
thusiasm flags. The rivers to the north
are now at the height of the season,
which lessons the demand in their home
market. The boats drop off nightly, the
more industrious fishermen, and the la
zier ones, who have idled while the sea-
son passed UNDECIDED. continue the long
est. The once populous bay, with a cool
northeastern blowing, becomes a desolate
extent of water, lonely and cold to the
straying boatmen, and so it remains un-
til well on in the autumn, when the mi
grafton of the vast tlocks of wild fowl
streaming in continuously from the north,
gathers the duck hunters to the vacated
hauntS of the fiSberment.