The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1902-12-08
Big HERRING CATCH.
YARMOUTH BREAKS THE REC
ORD.

five Thousand Dollars Worth of Fish
The Methods.
Yesterday established a record in the
Yarmouth herring fishery. On that one
day 100000 behring's We're landed on
the wharfs of the East Anglican port.
They will sell for 225,00O, and hum
dreds-perhaps thOusands-Of fisher
men feel rich to-day. The herring
fleet spread for three miles along the
harbor. Never was such a fleet in port,
and never before has Yarmouth wit
messed such a scene. Not a man, Wo-
man or child need starve to-day who
can walk creep or toddle down to the
fish wharf, for dozen herring can be
obtained by any one for a Thank
you" And what herring are these No
vember fish, that have never smelt
salt and are barely dead! Firm, fat,
thick and sweet as different from the
rank red-eyed offal sold in London for
fresh herring as is a clean, fresh-run
Scotch salmon just out of the water
from the timed stuff. For miles round
inland the laboring lads have trooped
to the fishing. After starving on light
dumplings for the greater part of the
year, their consumption of their eaten
is extraordinary. One man told me
the other day that he usually man
aged tew or tree and tWanty feesh
and a ships biscuit or teW for brek-
fust," Such is the demand for hands
that almost any one, with or without
experience, can get a berth on Var
nuactoft hnof over 150
steamers and about the same number
of sailing craft put out from Yarmouth
alone.
The net profits of each boat are di-
vided into 16 shares, of which seven go
to the owners and the other nine are
split up among the hands in proportion
to their standing. Thus the master
will take 1 IL or ga share, the mate
l IA or 1-2, and so on down to the
fashioned boy, who gets quarter or
even one-eighth of a share. A share
in a lucky boat may run to close on
5000 for two months fishing.
The new steam drifters are fine
boats, about 60 tons, so feet in length
by Is feet in the beam, and whereas
eight years ago the wharf was full of
nothing but sailing craft, now scarcely
one old-fashioned ketch brings in fresh
fish. These could carry % lasts with
ease and keep at sea two or three
nights till their holds were full, thus,
as a consequence, landing salt fish.
But the steamers, whose holding ca
pacity is less than 20 lasts, owing to
the room taken up by their engines,
and the Scotch boats, which are small
iph+ &c ic thneo
that bring the real "caller herrin'."
In the old days the nets were not
more than two miles long. But now
every steamer has at least 40 or 1870, or
even 200 nets 80 yards wide by Is or 200
"score" deep. A score" is a score of
meshes, so that taking mesh as an
inch the depth is some 30 feet, with an
aggregate length Of three miles. The
nets are fashioned together to form a
continuous surface, and are floated by
buoys. The Scotch nets are smaller in
the mesh, and are barely two miles
long. No boat is allowed to shoot her
nets to the detriment of another, so
that each boat must have at least three
miles clear sweep If a steamer, two II
a Scotchman. If we consider this and
the number Of the boats concerned we
shall get some idea Of the magnitude
of the fishing.
There are, in addition to the VAR
mouth boats, over 500 Scotch sailing
craft and about 80 Scotch steamers.
The Scotch sailers and all the steamers
leave harbor SO as to reach the fishing
ground by evening The herring are
now exactly off Yarmouth at a shoal
ILL.,
The gulls betray the whereabouts of
the fish by day, lovely phos-
phorescence by night. Hither come the
boats with their millions of meshes,
and, when night has fallen, the nets
are paid out, the lights lit, and the
vast feet lies quietly drifting with the
tide, twinkling red, green and white,
like multitudinous fragments of some
dismembered rainbow
Whence once the nets are shot, un-
less there is an exceptionally heavy
strike evidenced by the long line of
buoys and the drag of the nets, the
boats drift on till daybreak. Then be-
gins the gathering of the harvest. Net
after net comes up over the side gleam-
ing and flashing in the rising sun with
living silver. AS the herring are drawn
up they are shaken out of the nets in
to the hold, for they are only held by
the gills, which get caught in the
meshes Mackerel are SO delicate that
few are brought aboard alive. The
mere act of striking the nets kills
them. But the herring come up flap
ping and cheeping till they sound like
the washing Of some army fluttering in
the wind. A good catch is 10 lasts,
though II and IS have been taken in a
night 1t must be remembered that,
though a. last is nominally only 10000
fish, it is really 1920, for a hundred
counts 1872. Twelve and 1900 lasts are
sometimes landed at Yarmouth fish
wharf in one day, and they are all off
by night.
When the last net is up away goes
the boat for harbor Then is the time
to taste what real fresh herring may
be like. Headed and Quilted before it
Is dead and popped on the galley fire,
1t is a dish for king. No salmon or
trout can touch it. But to get it to per-
lection it must be alive when it is pre-
pared for cooking. The sight of 300 or
100 Scotch luggers racing home to har-
Dor is picturesque in the extreme--their
great brown sails bullying and their
gracefully rounded hulls heeling over
70 the morning breeze-but though
these could beat the local ketches in