The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-12-09
TO end POUND FISHING.
Effort to Abolish 1t to Be Made
by Fish Protective Associ-
ations-WilI Appeal to
the Legislature.
Especial to "Thc Jersey city News."l

Especial to Tho Jersey City News.''1
ASBURY PARK, Dec. 9, 1S97.-The
numerous fish protective associations in
New Jersey, together with the hand line
fishermen in Monmouth county, have
again united for the purpose of securing
legislation prohibiting the setting out of
pound nets in the ocean. The pound net
owners have also combined for the pur-
pose of defeating the measure, so a bat
tie royal is anticipated.
The land line fishermen, and there are
several thousand of them in Monmouth
and Ocean counties, claim that the pound
nets gobble in all of the game fish, thus
preventing them from going into the bays
and rivers to spawn. Their business,
they claim, has been ruined by this com
paratively new mode of capturing fish,
and they also contend that the supply Of
good fish will be exhausted in a few years
if the Legislature does not call a halt on
the pound net men. Millions of young
and unmarketabie. fish are caught every
year in the pounds. they say, but instead
of releasing the baby fish, the pound
men sell them to the farmers for fertil-
izer.
There were thirty pound net scattered
along the coast from Atlantic Highlands
to Chadwicks last season. Each pound
required the services of from five to
seven men, and it is estimated that this
army of fishermen captured ten million
pounds of fish, or more thar the hand
line fishermen could catch in a century.
TIL pounds are set out in the early
spring, in order to entice the fish bound
north from southern waters. They are
not taken up until late in the fall, so
the fish have but a slight chance to es-
cape capture, either in coming from their
winter quarters or returning to the
same.
The rod and reel anglers who sum
mer in Monmouth and ocean counties,
owners. They claim that the pounds
prevent the game fish from entering the
esturaries of the ocean, and, in conse-
quence, they are deprived of legitimate
sport. Years ago Barnegat Bay and the
M~anasquan River were alive with game
fish, but for several years past they
nave been unable to enjoy angling in
those waters, owing to the scarcity of
fish, which are rounded up in the nets
before they had a chance to enter the
pays and rivers to spawn.
The pound net owners deny that their
modern method of capturing fish is de-
plotting the bays and rivers along the
coast. The nearest pound to Barnegat
Bay is at C~hadwicks, a distance of at
least fifteen miles, so it is absurd, they
maintain, TO claim that the pounds are
responsible for the scarcity of fish in
that famous body of water. Last sum-
mer fish were unusually plentiful in the
ocean ard its estuaries, and the hand
line men and dude anglers they as
sert, were never more successful-a re-
futation of the claim hat the pounds
were killing off the supply Of fish.
Game fish, the pound owners say, are
freaky, and. consequently, migratory,
which accounts, in q measure, for their
disappearance from New Jersey waters
for years at a stretch. 1t is further
contended that the sewage emptied into
the ocean from the new resorts i'll Mon
mouth county, drive the fish away.
The pound owners also pose as phil
anthropists. Their new method of fish
ing enables the poor in the big cities
to purchase wholesome food cheapily.
Last summer the pound owners shipped
car loads OF fresh fish to New Jersey
them at retail at 5 cents per pound.
The hook and line fishermen are unable
to supply the demand for fish, and the
adjustment of the pounds would mean
that the poor would be compelled to pay.
fancy prices for fish during the summer
months. There were thirty pounds oper-
ated along the Northern Jersey coast
last season, and not one of them. the
owners assert, made a cent, owing to
the low prices at which they were COM
PEELED to dispose of their fish.