The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-02-12
EEL spEARrNG THROUGH ICE.

EEL SPEARTNG THROIGH ICE.
How II Is Done 10y Experis-CountinS Live
Ecis In Basket.
wed read in the papers, said man
who works hard six days in the week and
sometimes seven. about how this end OF
the Sound was all frozen over, boats having
hard time getting through and all that'
( and Sunday a friend of mine and /, the
! other man, If anything liking scenery and
outdoors better'n | do. went up and walked
| around few miles on the ice, in tho nelgh-
| borhood Of City Island and thcreabouts.
And there's ice there, sure enough no
/ end TO it, and we saw plenty of things that
! interested US; tugboat, for ono thing
keeping open n channelto the shore. Been
at it now for days, day and night, and even
at that keeping open way only as wide
as herself
Then there are echooners. plenty OF
them. lying around frozen up solid in ice;
iceboats scooting back and forth, at thirty
or forty miles an hour, in Pelham bay.
Very slick iceboats, some Of 'em; some oil
'em home made in barns or cellars in sum
mer and brought out here in winter rugged
with catboat sails Great, the iceboats
Something else that interested us was
the sight of two men spearing for cells IN
the mud in thirty feet OF water through a
hole in the ice in the Glen Island channel
Able men, these eel spearers, and they
know how 10 go about i.
Equipment a fiat bottomed market
basket, an axe and certainly the longest
eel spear | ever saw. IL had a handle
forty-fye feet long If it was an inch.
First time | ever saw real eel spearers
cut a hole in the ice. Ice here seven inches
thick First the man with the axe cut
around through the ice a line that was IKE IKE
the half of a circle. circle that. with the
other half added, would be about fiVe feet
in diameter.
Then he went over to the other side, to
the solid ice where the middle OF the
other half circle would come and chopped
a few times there. and then, from where
he was chopping, the ice parted on either
side around to the two ends Of the semi
circle that he had chopped through. Why
the ice does this / don't know. but that's
what it did. and cutting the ice IN that way
saves lot of work to men who know how
TO do it.
Then that big cake Of ice FIVE feet in
diameter had TO be got out Of the way to
leave hole. Some men would have tired
TO get ii out OF the hole somehow, broken
it up, maybe. and taken 1t out IN ohnnks
but what these men did was to till one edge
OF it down under the edge OF the firm sur
rounding ice and then work it under out
OF the way And then they began spear
ing And pretty soon we began TO under
stand why they wanted a handle forty
five feet long for fishing in thirty feet OF
water.
with a pole not much longer than the
depth OF the water they could have reached
only the bottom Immediately under the
hole, an area not large enough TO pay Tor
cutting through the ice; but with that long
l.. ~ ", ba 6pyyr, "a
ing angles, they could reach out around
on the bottom and cover thoroughly through
that five foot hole an area thirty feet in
diameter, and then when they had nshed
one hole clean In this way they would
move and cut another.
when they got an eel they raised the
spear out Of water and shook tho eel from
the spearhead on the ice; on the ice and
in freezing weather the cells wouldn't
squirm far away, and when the ,spearers
moved to cut new hole they gathered up
the cells from the ice and put EN- in the
basket. They caught few other things
besides cells We saw EN- spear up a
branch Of tree. an empty whiskey bottle.
and the rowlock Of a boat but they We're
doing well catching eels.
Ever try to count GELS In basketr When
we struck the eel spearers they were at
their second hole They had nine ,ee!s
then lying around on the ice. and those
We could count easy enough; but when we
tried to count the cells in the basket, that
thew had gathered up and brought from
the first hole. it was different,
Couldn't we have counted their heads
and so get the number easy1 Yes, we could
have done that IL the cells had kept still;
but they were warmer in the shelter OF
the basket than on the ice, and a good deal
livelier, and we pooty soon found that count
ing live cells in a basket was far from being
the easiest task in the world.
I'VE got so absorbed In 1t that we forgot
all about that tugboat plugging away keep
ing that channel open, and the schooners
locked up in the ice, and the iceboats
scooting around on Pelham Bay, and all
the rest Of the ice business. and just buoked
down TO those cells forgetting everything
else; and | guess we must have counted
EN- at least twenty-three times, making EN-
at different times all the way from eleven
TO thirty-seven; but finally We settled on
twelve as the number, and then we went TO
the eel spearers.
And they said there was just twelve,
and naturally that pleased US very much.
As a matter OF fact we thought we made
pretty good job OF counting the eels; and
i don't know but what that pleased us as
much az anything we did in the day.
But there sure Is lot Of ice up there