The Portland daily press., 1895-06-26
MiCKEREL PLENTY.
ProyineetONn Fishermen Are Making
Great Money.
MEN SENDING HOME $10O TO $14O
AS A WEEKS PROFITS.
Stocks $1,000 in Ten Days From Port
Prices Are Away Up.

Craft Carrying Three Men and Boy
Stocks $1,000 in Ten Days From Port
Prices Are Away Up.
Provincetown, June 25 The mackerel
catching outlook has improved. Follow
ing the reported take of three hundred
and twenty barrels in south channel by
the Kearsarge after leaving the Cape
shore comes good news from boats operat-
ing at various points along the coast
The Provincetown "draggers, operat-
ing at Rockport, Gloucester and vicini ty,
are doing finely. Letters from crews of
several of the latter craft have reached
here during the past few days, and from
the general tenor one would gather that
all the boats are making far better earn
ings than is usual in this work. In
diyidual members of crew have sent home
sums ranging from 500 to $40 as their
share of the profits accruing from the
labors of one week
One craft, carrying three men and a
boy, is reported as having stocked $1,000
81 nee leaving here ten days ago.
One very bad feature combatted is the
horde of dogfsh, which is found at all
fishing grounds, and nets are fast being
reduced to rags.
Several of the boats that had been
working off Plymouth and Scituate have
returned, having had pretty good luck
catching mackerel, but the legions of
dogfsh and whiting spoiled their plans.
Some of the fleet are getting away for
Block Island, whence comes flattering
It'd dings.
Many "pods' of mackerel arc found in
this vicinity, but they continue to play
close about Peaked hill bars, where the
racing tide is unfavorable to dragging !"
Vessels and steam crafts with seines are
patrolling in that vicinity. but during
the past twenty -four have been unable to
| catch other than very small lots, although
| tere is quite body of mackerel there.
The greatest factor in defeating the
ends of the seiners at present IS the
presence of vast schools of blue-back
herrings, which are mixed with the
mackerel. Vessels made any amount of
sets of seines Saturday, but, although
mackerel were enclosed, they were not
saved, it becoming necessary for the
crews to bail hundreds of barrels of
herring to obtain barrel or two of
| mackere1.
Schooner Flora Temple brought in
eighty barrels of herring and sold the
same at 81 per barrel to fishing craft
Steamer A. B. Nickerson disposed of a
! like quantity in a similar manner.
| Set nets in the harbor are taking
scarcely anything, all fish remaining OUT
side.
| Although mackerel are reported few on
the Nova Scotia shore, it is evident that
netters are having fair success, as letters
received from Captain Nathaniel W. Free
man of the schooner Oliver Cromwell
state that his gang had taken sixty
barrels of mackerel, salted, up to June IA
The Cromwell has a crew of five men
working with nets and is fishing at, or
near, the Magdalen Islands. On the day
of writing the nets took three barrels of
| fish.
The total failure of the Irish fishery and
the greatly reduced catch ON the Cape
shore has forced the price upward to a
figure that gives grand returns to our
fishermen and the appearance of late of
fish about Georges and South channel,
indicating a return Of the big schools that
frequented those feeding places years ago,
can but cheer the men who have pursued
this will -the-wisp business with SC
little S success during the past ten years.