Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-11-13
coD-7,sH,No.
How b Cod Saves Himself fror,
Taking Ballnst. sl

How The Cod Saves Himself frou
Taking Ballast. ss
That a fish should ever do anvth;u-
so nnflshlike as to take in ballast Won,
strike many people as ~parado.;a",
Yet those who have gone down to "a.
in ships and are learned in in-bearar'
lore testify to the reality Of this nhs
nomenon. The cod is the fish wh;sl
lays himself open to this cruel cb.nna
and is known to actually gulp dow
stones almost as large as a foot hal,
and more than n of them. too. WI
it Ices SO a reporter learned from !.
veteran c%od-fsherman yesterday.
why. yes" said he, "of course cod
fish take in ballast. Why, I've found
eight or ten stones inside the fish,
nav after we've caught him. The cod
takes in stone in order to keep himself
at the bottom during a gale. When
you are cod-tishing you can always tell
If there is to be a gale, or whether a
gale has just passed that way. Then
you get in a regular quarry. A good
gale of course carries the cod up to tho
surface, where he has a hard time of #
You see there is sort of bladder which
forms in his jaw and runs out some
times as far as a foot or so. This blad.
der fills with air and floats the fish. and
keeps him from going down. So in
order to prevent that he picks ont
sound stones on the sea bottoms and
swallows them. Sea elephants do the
same thing, and often huge stones are
found in their stomachs."
"How is the cod caught?" the re-
porter asked.
"They are caught on 'trollers.'
There is a long line, a runner fisher
mel call it and at every fourteen or
eighteen feet a short line five
or six feet long is fastened. l used.
to have on my runners as many as
three hundred hooks baited. The line
would be baited on board ship, and
the whole 'snood' would be coiled up
into a tub taperipg toward the bottom
so as to give the line play. The coil
ing is very important, and You must
take great care with it Sc as not to
snarl the lines. For bait, dogtsb.
whitetish and such like in chunks big.
ger than vour hand are hooked on.
Liz pOd1S Pue vi Wllu Uuc UuD III the
bow, and when we'd get to a good
spot the man in the bow passes the
line all baited to the stern man, who
throws it overheard as fast as it is
paid out. 1t used to 60, out pretty
fast sometimes when the tide was run
ming strong, and many a fellow has
got his fingers ripped open on the
hooks. The whole line would then be
anchored, and we'd wait until back
water came, which would be in five or
six hours, and then haul in.
THAT used to be hard work. The:
fish would run small and large, and
we would hook on skates and dog1ish
and whiteiish and others besides the
cod. Once when we were pulling up
anchor.w We hauled in a big stone which
weighed three hundred pounds, and
was full of scallops and mussels and
long and round clans.
"When we got the catch. back to. one
smack we'd dress the fish and stow
them away in fine ice. We used to,
work day and night sometimes, and
once. off Cape Sable; L Slept only nine.
hours out of five days, and nights. A
shipload which averaged sixty pounds
to the fish used to be considered a.
good one. Sometimes the average
would run as high as, one hundred
pounds. The cod runs all the way
from fifteen to two and three hundred
pounds in weight. l oncc caught one
which weighed over three hundred
pounds. "-NeW Haren News.