The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1893-03-06
SHADING IN FLORIDA WATERS.
Catching Fish IN the Lower Part of the St.
Johns River.


Johns River.
Shading is a subject striking home to
the stomach Of every good man and true,
and any man with taste for sport would
consider himself In piscatorial paradise
could he view the wholesale capture of fin
bearers, and particularly shad, in the lower
St. Johns river.
There Is nothing Of the lone fisherman
about shading in Florida waters. Two
men, or a man and boy, put out in
rather large sized boat, one rowing and the
other paying out sa&Ae over the stern.
The seine end first thrown out is attached
to a gayly colored spherical float, which
marks one limit of the net and thus defines
distinctly the course taken by it when
operations are in full progress. The net Is
paid out at right angles to the direction in
which the tide is making. Cork hobs are
attached to the upper tension line at inter
walls of 10 feet, and when the work OF
dropping" or paying out is finished q
string of from 80 to so hobs floats jauntily
onward with the tide in the buoyant Flor
ida sunshine. At times dozens of such
lines may be seen drifting ''up river" from
Pilot Town, each line followed by lum-
bering boat, with It's two fishermen clad in
heavy caps and REFERS, for even In latitude
80 degrees midwinter air, despite the sun
shine, is biting il one ventures out upon
the water
The sight IS one which may be watched
for hours without fatigue. One sees per-
haps 10 or 20 handicap races between long
lines of dancing hobs. Inequalities in
dropping" turns in the channel and
changes in the wind are factors which con-
tinually threaten to cause the lines to in
terfere and occasion much nautical empha-
sis among the shadders.
After seine has dritted mile or two It
Is pulled into the boat over the stern. Oc-
casionally it comes up as empty as it went
down, but generally it is freighted with n
Hopping mass of fish sufficient to tax the
muscles of even st. Johns fisherman
The average catch of each haul is from 20
to 25 shad and 8 or 6 fish of other kinds.
Seines are cast and hauled four or five
times in the course of each day tide. The
number of casts made at night is small,
owing to the difficulty of keeping the seines
apart and the danger that they will be torn
by passing vessels.
The danger from vessels is considerable
even in daylight. Just as the shadder has
slipped the last bob over the stern of his
boat and is anxiously watching the seine as
ii spins merrily away on the tide around
some sharp turn in the channel the white
wings of a clumsy fruiting or fishing schoon-
err may be seen rounding the adjacent point.
Then the shadder falls upon evil minutes.
He must either hasten to pull in one end of
the seine or he must persuade the skipper
of the craft to tack by it. In the latter case
he beckons theoretically with an unwilling
shad in each hand, and even more energet-
ically implores, in a cloudy basso, Hard a
lee!" or keep her awayr'
The skipper is up to the tricks of his
kind and affects to regard such demonstra-
tions with indolent amusement. AS the
schooner swoops down toward the boat he
sends his foggy voice nonchalantly over the
water inquiring, Dye want all O. them
burned shad?"-a question which results
in n promise of the two uplifted fish and
the immediate changing of the vessels
course in such wise as to put an end to the
danger of cutting down the seine. Ere
quently it is necessary for n shadder to offer
and give eight or nine such brides in "A
hours.-D. d. Bidwell in New York Times.