News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1886-06-10
PORPOISE CATCHING.
A Business that Would be Profitable II One
Could Catch Enough Porpoises.


A Groton man, Benjamin J. Gardner
of Poquonnoc Ridge, who dwells at the
Poquonnoc estuary, in which oysters are
raised on poles stuck in the mud, is try
ing hard to do paying business catch
ing porpoises. All fishermen try to catch
a porpoise If chance offers, because it is
valuable fish, but no one ever tried to
make porpoise catching a vocation until
Gardner undertook to do it. His neigh
bors laugh at him. A year ago or more
Capt. Gardner fitted out couple of
sailboats, hired crew of eleven men.
had coarse seine made half mile in
length or longer. And sailed away 20
the porpoise grounds. Nearly all salt
water harbors and estuaries are frequent
ed by the fish, which come putting and
tumbling into them in chase of their
prevail kinds of small fish. But the
best ground is Coecles Harbor at Shelter
Island.
In the waters of this harbor hundreds
of porpoises are sometimes seen, and a
wild and rolling scene it is, with acres
of the sleek, black animals tipping over
and over like floating carboys, as they
plunge after their food. To landsman
they seem to be doing it for fun, but it
is serious fun to them and to smaller
fish. Shoals of mackerel, herring, bony
fish, and, in the season, porgies, are
their game, and the sharp jaws of the
porpoise, each armed with forty-five or
fifty teeth, do murderous work that
stains the sea with crimson. Often
mackerel and herring shoals are driven
nearly on the beaches by their remorse-
less pursuers, or up broad rivers almost
have been seen in the Thames River as
far north as Kitemaug, seven or eight
miles above the city, in pursuit of flying
bony fish. Capt. Gardner sailed into
Coecles harbor one day last summer,
dropped his big seine overheard, and
next morning his men rolled half dozen
fat porpoises upon the beach. Several
other casts were made, but none were as
successful as Capt Gardner had antici-
pated that they would be. All through
the summer he fished for proposes, but
with only partial success. The big fell
lows broke through his stout netting
and away the whole shoal rushed out
through the opening. They toppled
over his seine and wound themselves up
in 1t, and SO made it practically useless
to stop the escape of the other fish until
the snarl was Strengthened.
Capt. Gardner lost money trying to
catch porpoises last season, but he went
to work again this spring with redoubled
energy. He has not been successful yet;
the catches have not remunerated him
for the expenses of the trip. A week or
more ago his crew had two days of fine
luck, taking nine porpoises on one day
and twenty five on the next. So not yet
have Capt. Gardeners efforts decided the
question whether it will pay to syste-
mat1cally hunt porpoises, but he means
to continue the business. The biggest
porpoise he has caught weighed 500
pounds. The little ones weigh not more
than so or 100 pounds.
Not particle of the porpoise is vast
ed in preparing it for the market. First
the skin is taken off, which is superior
even to alligator hide for carriage leather
and for shoes. The skin is nearly an
inch thick, but it is planed down until
it becomes nearly translucent. The
blubber is tried out, yielding an oil
equal to the best sperm oil for lubricat-
ing. and two other grades are made from
the head and jaw, both being superior
to that from the blubber. The jaw oil
is used by jewellers and watchmakers,
who pay at the rate of $15 gallon for
it. The meat is cut out and sold to
those who are fond of it. There is
tradition that anciently it was SO highly
esteemed that it was in demand for the
table of royalty. In the times of Queen
Elizabeth it was served to the mobiles of
with bread crumbs and vine
gar. 1t is chief dainty to the Green
landers. 1t is dark colored and bloody.
The carcass of the porpoise is thrown in
with menhaden, and little more oil is
tried out of it, after which it becomes a
fertilizer. An average porpoise is worth
in all about $40.
The trap commonly used to catch
them with is large net of strong rope
which is stretched over large area of
water, lager beer barrels being at tached
to the edges at intervals. BY an appara-
tus work ed from the shore the barrels
are forcib!y submerged while the por-
ooises are coming into the feeding
grounds, and when number of them
ire directly over the net the strain on
he barrels is relaxed and they rise
20 the surface behind the fish, which
ind themselves imprisoned in pen. 1t
costs about 1000 to equip first class
trap.