The San Francisco call., 1896-08-08
BATTING THE COD
IN HIS SEA-LA|R,
How Morrhua Americana
Is Taken In Out Of
the Wet.
HIS FOE THE DORYMAN.
The Fish That GrazeS in the
Submarine Fields for
Science.
A GOOD STRING OF DOLLARS.
Packing.House of the Lynde.Hough
Fish Company at California
City.
A GOOD STRING OF DOLLARS.

A Goldfish is never more happy than
when he iy hung to line. He will travel
a hundred marine leagues if he hears that
some man in little fishing dory has a
hook out. He never learns that the
dainty, juicy morsel swinging to and fro
thirty or forty fathoms down in the sea
conceals steel barb. His ancestors have
successively gone on making the same un-
pardonable mistake ever since the waters
OF the great deep were gathered together.
Other creatures, in the light of a dreadful
experience, have picked up an instinct
that there is danger in hook, but
the cod does not, and is pulled
in. And his. family of youngsters-he
leaves behind thousands of them-soone er
or later will follow him into cask.
So the chap in the dory drifting quietly
over the bank watches his two lines and
awaits the inevitable jerk which tells of
the presence of the voracious morrhua.
He knows that if the signal nibble does
not come soon that COD has other fish to
fry, because it is always eating or going to
eat 1t is the marine personification of
famine and starves with its stomach full
of food. Old fishers say that cod will
gulp down baited hook with his mouta
filled with salmon he has just caught
There have been several cases where this
gourmand of the seas has managed to get
away with a hook, sinker and several
fathoms of heavy line to be caught few
minutes later by new fishing tackle.
Notwithstanding the fearful mortality
among this fish, so anxious to get caught
that only the most remarkable error on
it's part can save its life. it defies extermi-
nation. 1t spawns and swarms and thick
ems the sea with ITSELF 1t has been said
that if the Gods many enemies ceased
him self from overeating, he and the diff
ferent mem bers of his family would soon
fill the ocean from bottom to surface and
from shore to shore. In fact there would
be no more sea.
Being Juicy, delecsable morsel is not
the only good thing that can be said of
this fish of the genus Gadus. He has an
Unsuitable appetite for scientific research,
and an exploration within his almost un-
fathomable stomach has revealed the fora
and fauna of life existing far down in
the soundless deeps. While he is discuss
ing a breakfast of mussels with seaweed
on the side he is laboring in the cause of sci
ence, and when David Starr Jordan hooks
him out of his great, watery dining-room
he will be the means OF adding much to
the roster of the vegetable and animal
kingdom of the sea.
One of the companies on this coast that
have taken advantage of the seeming desire
on the part of the Goldfish to get caught is
the Lynde & Hough Company of San
Francisco. They have packing estab-
lishment at California City, where their
three vessels-the schooner Arago and the
barkentine es Fremont and Falkenberg-
reft and discharge
The schooner got in from Bering Sea
recently with 72,O00 fish salted down in
nice white flakes in her hold-the Falken-
berg with 115. OOO-and a few days ago the
Fremont sailed through the Golden Gate
and up along the Marin shore to the end
of her summer outing with hook and line
with catch of 10000 fish. And so the
three vessels brought home heavy string
of 357, 600 Bering cod, and they were not
bought in fish market, either.
Each vessel is provided with crew of
twenty or thirty men, a few being cutters
and salters. who remain aboard the vessel
while the rest man the dories and fish,
The dory is a sharp. .at-both-ends flat
bottomed boat and is propelled by two
oars and a sail of light material. This
latter is only used to run before the wind,
as the cranky fat-bottomed craft could
not sail on wind. The doryman takes
his station on the cod bank and dropping
his anchor overheard he lets his two lines
with the four hooks run out in the sea.
They go down deeply-40 fathoms. where
the big cod grow-and he awaits further
DEVELOPMENTS. Tney come quickly if
there are any cod about for Bering cod
never lets a hook with Its chunk of fat
halibut go begging.
As he is yanked upward with the barb
pulling at his lip his great mouth opens
wide and the water flowing into his
stomach and lungs generally browns him.
Even if not dead he is so helpless and so