St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1885-01-17
MILLIONS OF k:eaRLna.
Easy to Catch, but Hard to Sell, Even ff
They Arc Fat


They Arc Fat.
PLENTY Of herring, butno market this
year" said fisherman who was paint
ing dory, which rested bottom up on
the beach at Newburyport. You can
catch all the herring you want any
night, but you can't sell 'em. There is
one net in use, and two or three boats
go out at night torching, but there isn't
much money in it. Last night one of
the boats brought in twenty barrels of
fish, and q farmer bought the whole lot
for six dollars to put on the land as a
fertilizer. The squids are 50 plenty now
that we can't sell many herring, even
for manure, because the farmer would
rather have squid. We used to sell her.
ring for bait, but they don't do much
trawling The meters have killed that
business and onlya few boats go out
traw1ing. Are the herring good. for
food? Why, certainly, but they're too
cheap to pay for catching them. Peo-
pie about here use a good many, and the
peddlers take few barrels every day
and sell the herring for about FIVE cents
dozen. The fish are bigger this year
than usual and are first rate to eat.
Generally they are about third grown
when they come into the river, but this
year they are as large as Labrador her
ring. Where they make a business of
taking herring and curing them in
large quantities, it probably pays. The
regular herring-fshers follow them from
Cape Cod all along the coast to Port
land and beyond and catch immense
quantities, and that makes it unprofta-
bic to follow the business in small
way as they once did here. Besides
that, the small mackerel are very cheap
now-tWo or three dollars q barrel-and
people would rather have mackerel than
herring any time. It don't pay very
well for three men to work all night
catching herring at six dollars q boat
load. In fact any kind of fishing don't
pay nearly as well as fused to and there
are only six boats sailing out of New
buryport now.
g IF you want to see them catch her.
ring come down on the sea-wan at night
when the tide comes in. In the day
time the herring keep outside and out
of sight, but when it grows dark they
come to the surface and follow the tide.
The darker the night the better the fish
ing. Three men got out in adory, two
to row and one to fish. The best place
for herring is where the tide eddies
around a point; and the fishermen pull
out to an eddy and look for She school
The man IN the bow has torch, and
and the hight attracts the fish. They
will get SO crazy after torch ON dark
night that they'll boil right cslt of water
around the boat. It'll be just solid her
ring and nothing else, and all a man
has to de is to shovel them into the boat.
I've lpeaT3i some chaps say they've seen
the herring 50 thick as to lift u boat
clean 0ut{of water, and one fellow down
on the. point sWears that he drove y
school IN shore one night and walked to
the beach on top of the herring without
getting his feet wet; but ! We always had
some doubts about that. The same fell
low says he's seen the herring crowd
each either so far out of water that
they'd spill each other ever the gum
wales and fill up the boat themselves. i
don't know about that, but it is a fact
that ID man with y scoop MT sometimes
can take in barrel of fish at one dip.
AT fllat rate it doesn't take long to fill a
boa TO the gunwales. That's about all
there is to torching' herring. You
Just goDut where the fish are-and you
can easily find the place by rowing the
eddies and watching the surface of the
wattm-tand then scoop them in; and
when you come ashore pou may get
thirty cents barrel from some farmer
for syOur catch / car remember,
though, when barrel of herring used
to bring fvedollars.
How longWill the herring stay here?
oh. until the ice begins to make, and
taaenithev III clear out. AnHlthe fisher
man picked up his paint pot and drifted
aWay.Boston Globe.