Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-06-23
How Shad Are Caught.

Drawing near to the Gloucester fish
ing station an hour before high water
there is little to betoken the coming
scenes of activity and excitement which
attend the drawing of the net. The
muddy Delaware dashes persistently in
the wind against the reach of yellow
sand half q mile long hat fringes the
dull bank. A few ragged loafers or a
bevy Of boy truants wander about list
lessly or dangle their legs from heaps
OF brown timber. Two or three wood
en- windlasses with spaces for men and
a horse, ar set several hundred feet
apart from each other, but rough,
weather-beaten and out of plumb, one
scarcely can tell at first whether they
are mementoes of old fisheries or are in
present use. A little way further down
the shore there are more animated signs
Of coming events. A meditative horse
hitched between the poles of a windlass
awaits with dropping ears and sleepy
eyes the call to labor. There is a stout
band of twenty dusky Africans sleeping
on a grassy bank, each with a coil Of
network over his shoulder. A nervous
old salt, dry as a cask, a little clock in
his hand, is seen constantly entering.
and emerging from a rough board hut.
Within the hut is a little wheel. and a
cord doubled around the axle with a
float at n end and a weight at the
other, records the lifting tide. But not
satisfied with this device the bronzed old
fisherman watches a~nxiously a set of
pegs which he has set along the Marco
of one of the still inner pools connecting
with the river. The function of this old
fellow is an important one, for in haul
ing a net half a mile long every freak of
the tide must be watched, or the two
hours labor of half a hundred men will
go for nothing.
A stout rope, perhaps th%ree-quarters
of all inch in diameter, circles around q
great wheel at the bottom of the wind
less and trends out into the river. Fol-
lowing with the eye the direction of this
rope, vision lights on a strange craft
half a mile out in the stream. Manned
by eighteen oarsmen, each grasping a
big sweep, pointed at the bow and with
blunt, high popped stern, it..looks TO rail-
the world like an old Roman trireme.
A heap at the stern rises to the proper
tions of a respectable railroad embank-
AdoAio' LIE ACaP 10 Uut ucu, one OF
whose ends is Joined to the rope men
toned heretofore. A net of such mag
nitude IS a curiosity by itself. 1t is a
seine almost half a mile long, or, in
round numbers, twenty-five hundred
feet. Its width varies from ten feet at
the extremities to fifty in the centre.
Its meshes are about two inches square,
and in weaving the whole about lis
miles of strong cord are required. The
cost of n Of these big seines is some
$1,000, and its usefulness ends by rot
and breakage in three years The net
is bnoyed by floats as large as a mans
head, but no leads are used, as the
weight of the under-run rope sufices
for sinking. In the course Of a season
the breakage of the meshes by snags on
the river bottom, and by ordinary wear
artd tear, is very serious. But the chief
,narplot of the fisherman is the stur-
geon. One of these armored fishes,
with his sharp adamantine nose, passes
through a seine like IN arrow through
air and he leaves, every time he