The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-03-18
GETTING READY FOR SHAD
Preparations of the Fishermen
Along the Delaware.
Work TO BE Started in Three Weeks
-GiIIers md seine Men on the
Move for the Approaching Season
Some Rare sight. to he Witnessed.

PHILADELPHIA, March 17.-Along the
banks of the Delaware, from Camden as
far down as the bay, yellow nets are here
and there spread over the coarse, stiff
grass. Weather-beaten men in boots
broad breasted, well set up-move slowly
to and fro, STOPPING to mend the nets
with Irvine. A strong and steady wind
ruffies the river; the waters are gilded
by a sun that blazes like a confagration
in sky unima ginably blue; in the mud
of the marshes crows stand solemnly. and
through the clear air gulls circle, their
breasts and the inside of their wings
shining like white cotton in the great
light. The air is cool. yet 1t is soft.
There is something joyous. something in
toxicating in the air. Ii is the breath of
the approaching spring.
In anticipation of the spring and OF
the shad that will then swim up the
river, all those healthy-looking men are
getting their nets ready. They will not
begin to catch the shad until April 10. but
they think it well to have everything
prepared In good time They are called
OILERS, after their nets, which are gill
nets, and there are some 500 of them,
dwelling in huts or lighthouses along the
stream, and depending mainly on thc two
through the year.
Then there is colony of about forty
other men, just summoned to Washington
Park TO get ready the gigantic, mile-long
seine. Albert Rice-Capt. Albert Rice
owns the seine, and the forty men will
work under him at a salary, living in his
houses below Washington Park and eat
ing at his table which is renowned along
the river for its excellence.
The OILERS fish on their own account,
and what they catch is theirs. Their nets
are made of cord as fine, pretty nearly,
as silk. The delicate meshes catch the
shad by the gills, and at the end of a
good seasons fishing giller will have
some $3.50 or 500 to the good. He works
day and night, setting out his net at each
of the three tides. peddling shad about
the waterside streets between times. A
healthy. calm-minded man, blessed with
an incredible appetite and few ambitions
of a worldly or sordid kind, the giller
takes life easy after the shad season,
though he will occasionally then spread
d net over some sewers outlet in the river
and draw 1t up freighted with about ton
of carp.
The mile-long seine net owned by Capt
Albert Rice is so old that no one can
remember when it was made. 1t probably
dates back, they say at Washington
Park. to the old Howell fishery, which
Gen. Joseph Howell started at Glou-
cester in 1850. 1t was not made in any
factory. hut by fishermen themselves.
All the shad nets. for that matter, are
the handiwork OF the men who use them.
The laying out of the huge seine at
Washington Park during the shad season
is a sight worth seeing 1t is wound on
roller I'm the stern of a thrty-foot boat
pulled by sixteen men, eight oars on a
side. The boat moves in a semi-circIe
across the river and the net is carefully
let fall Being forty feet wide it walls
the stream from top to bottom, and no
fish that happens TO be within the area
of its great circle can escape. In one
haul twill sometimes gather in 5000
shad, and then again it viii gather in but
twenty
The. men. in two lines haul it in slowly
They have hooks fastened to their belts
10 help them. Whether full or empty. the
net is tremendously heavy. SO that it is
impossible 10 tell until the last minute the
size of the catch. At the turn of the tide
the cast is made, Captain Rice having "A
little machine, called an indicator, by
which he knows precisely when the tide