Connecticut western news., 1882-08-16
CATCHING MENHADEN.

S~~Sss@~e~~~e's
 THE OLD FASHIONED WAYS AND THE NEW
 METHODS -sAInBoAT FISHERMEN AND
 THE STEAMERS = THE MYSTERIOUS
 HABITS OF THE MOSS BUNKER.
 From the New York Evening Post.l
 On Easthampton Beach one morning I saw one of the "along-shore" fishing crews casting their nets for menhaden. The operation was a most interesting one. As the sun rose tarry, weather beaten fisherman appeared from behind the sand dunes and walked down the beach, casting wary eye to seaward for a 'fshow" of "buDkers. As I watched him, the vidstte started, cast 8 glance at long ripple on the sea caused by thousands of tails and fins, then hastened to the summit of the dunes and waved his fishers coat frantically as signal to his fellows, who took to be in the fields, or perhaps on their way to the shore. Quickly a beach cart, drawn by two stout, shaggy ponies, whirls around the point of the dunes, stops, and six grizzled, sun-browned fishermen shake themselves out upon the sand. They change their dress, donning oil-skins and dilapidated old garments, and begin loading the seine, which had been spread along the face of the dunes to dry, into the wagon. The seine is one thousand feet long and sixty wide, and as the wagon is driven along beside it the men pay it in and stow it in the hinder part. Then the cart is backed to the waters edge, and the seine slowed in the stern of sharp pointed fshing-boat which has been hauled down from the dunes' to 8 posi- tion directly behind it. This done, the men launch their craft through the surf, getting we'll drenched in the encounter; tumble in, and row out lustily, unwind ing as they go s rope. one end of which is attached to the net and the other held in the hands of the men on shore. There are four oarsmen in the boat, and 8 captain who pays out tho seine. The spectators on shore, watching the line of nipples, see the men carefully encircle it, dropping the net as they go, and return on the other side, leaving line of floats encircling the "school." !" Once ashore all hands seize the ropes, and the ''haul" begins. The men pull Justify, with many '.Heave ho P and guttural aspiration. The net approaches the shore, and as the line of floats con- tracts. hundreds of menhadBn break the surface and the water Is churned by thousands of fins. Bluefish, bass, young sharks, toadfish, squids, and 25,000 menhaden are in the mass. Now afifty- pound bass makes mad plunge, scat tering the small fry right and left. or 8 bluefish leaps over the line of floats. But, unheeding these episodes, the mass steadily contracts, and at last, with 8 final rush, is hauled up within the line of surf. This is the signal for the fish, ermen, armed with forks and shovels, to jump in and throw the squirming, gilt tering mass in showers on the beach, whence it is quickly removed by the farmers carts and spread upon the fields.
 The incident awakened my interest in the menhaden, and led me to seek an interview with Captain Dominy, one of the oldest and most intelligent fishermen of the coast, with view to eliciting facts. The captain is stern- browed. grizzled, and has hauled his nets on every rod of coast from Mon- tank Point to Fire Island, and is famil. jar with every haunt of the sea rovera for the entire distance. He relates some astonishing tales of the former abundance of menhaden on that coast. At 8 single cast. of his net he once landed one hundred and fifty thousand. He has seen the whole surface of the sea tinged crimson with them, and has had hundred acres within his range of vision at once, every acre of whict would have turned out a million. IT those days every farmer owned an in terest in seine; "hauling bunkers was 2 regular part of farm work, anG the land grew rich in consequence Bunkers were then sold at seventy five cents thousand. asked the old fish erman's opinion as to the cause of the wholesale decrease, and his ready reply was, the steamers.
 You see, mister," he remarked "when the farmers were the only mar ket the men fished son the lay,' as we call it-that is, somebody with money furnished seine and the men hired ar old sloop and went after the fish fol two-thirds of the catch Them wa. good times-bunkers plenty, and tn. sloops generally back in day or two with flush decks. The men often mad, as high as fifteen or sixteen dollars , day then. How is it now? We'll, calculate on the Sound shore of tn, island there's 8 dozen fish-factories each one with from two to three steam CTS out seining for menhaden. The, skim every mile of the Sound and bays weather Montauk yonder, hug tn south shore here, and run down tn Jersey coast as far as Barnegat. Nc a bunker goes into the bay to spawn or dirts his tail in the surf along shore
 but what these fellows scoop him ir
 Consequently, what aren't taken ar
 scart oil, and the business is ruined fo sTerybody.''