Los Angeles herald., 1891-04-12
NEW FISHERIES.
Ten Thousand Miles of New Ameri-
can Fishing Grounds Discovered.

NGV EA0k1GNlGSs
Ten Thousand Miles of New Ameri-
can Fishing Grounds Discovered.
The fish commission announces that
a new fishing industry for this country
has been discovered, which adds more
than 10000 square miles to the fishery
area at present available off the Atlantic
coast.
This means that novelty in the shape
of what is known as "beam trawling"
has been introduced to the coastal
waters of the United States as means
OF catching fish. Up to the present
time the fisheries of the north Atlantic
have been confined almost wholly to the
great shadows called "banks" far off the
New England shore, where cod, had
dock and halibut are caught by means
of hook and bait. But the fish commits
sion has for some time past entertained
the notion that the waters elsewhere
than on the banks might be made greatly
productive by the use of such drag-nets
as are employed in British seas for the
capture of fishes, most particularly the
sole and other varieties of the
founder which bring high price
in the markets OF this country. The
fact has been known for long time that
the lemon sole and the cock sole,
which are of the varieties so highly
priced by epicures in Europe, are enor-
mously plentiful on the bottom of the
Atlantic declivity. But these fishes
have been almost unknown to the mar
kets of our seaports, owing to the fact
that no effective mode of taking them
was understood.
This seems rather curious, inasmuch
as the taking of such fishes by ready
means under like conditions is pursued
on vast scale from Billingsgate, Hull,
Grimsby and other ports of Great Brit
ain. The implement used for the pur-
pose over there is of very simple char
acter and is known as the beam trawl.
The reason why it has not been adopted
here is to be found in the prejudices of
the fishermen, who, like men who fol-
low other simple crafts, are constitu-
tionally indisposed to adopt new de-
partures. Besides, it was feared that
the bottom was too rough for the pur-
pose and the water too deep.
Howevs~, it was destined that the
time should arrive when beam-trawling
would be given trial on this shore of
the great pond. A few days ago the
schooner Mary F. Chisholm of Glouces-
ter, Mass, rs tons burden, made the
first experiment with beam-trawl i'm
ported from England. She returned on
March 30th with an enormous catch OF
cod, haddock and halibut captured in
the trawl, besides 5000 lemon sole, which
sold for A cents apiece wholesale. The
captain, whose name is Bradford, threw
overheard ten tons of these same soles,
because he did not know that they were
saleable. His trawl net came up time
after time so overloaded with fish that
the greatest difficulty was experienced
in getting them to the surface because
his vessel was only an ordinary schoon-
er, and not properly equipped for such
work. So great were the catches that
it took as much as nine hours to fetch
the trawl on board, so that most of the
fish were too badly injured to be saved.
He estimates that fully 240 tons of fish
were taken in the trawl.
This was no fortuitous incident, the
fish commission AYERS. The great shelf
of the Atlantic from the northern limits
of the banks southwark to and beyond
the capes of Virginia, are aswarm with
fishes which are unknown to our domes-
tic markets, simply for the reason that
no practicable method has hitherto been
applied for their capture. Vessels
equipped with steam apparatus for
hosting travis will shortly be built on
this coast, after the models commonly
in use at British ports, and the produc-
ton of fish on the shores of the Atlantic
III ho ,,1tip p1ioI within ha 10
years many fold. 1t is very modest
miles will be added in this way to the
fishing waters OF this side of the ocean.
In fact, an entirely new fishing industry
is on the point of being created, and, in
asmuch as it will be prosecuted off our
own coast-line and without the use of
bait, it will give rise to no such interna-
tional questions as have caused difficult
ties between this country and Great
Britain.
And yet beam-trawl is the simplest
apparatus conceivable. 1t is merely a
huge net, in the shape of a pocket
seventy feet in length, spread wide by a
stick of wood, which goes on runners like
sled, so that the net can be hauled
over the bottom easily, its lower portion
weighted with lead, and scooping in
every living thing that comes within its
reach, especially the soles and other fiat
fish that hug the sandy or muddy ground.
In summer the soles frequent the sandy
bottom mostly, but in winter they seek
the muddy holes for warmth. Together
with the soles is brought up most
wonderfully varied exhibition of marine
life, and on the deck of the trawler after
haul may be seen the Tapping and
writhing shapes of the conger eel, the
fierce wolf fish, with wickedly swapping
jaws, the dog fish-always the fisher
mans enemy--and the wide-mouthed
fishing frogs, which some one has called
animated carpet bags" together with
shells, sea-anemones, sea-corn, and so
forth ad infinitum.
Things Worth Remembering.
When you feel a kind of goneness about the
stomach it is sign that your food does not sit
we'll and that Won are about to have q fit of in