The Republican journal., 1909-08-12

you may catch cunners; perhaps stray
cod. A cod! There you speak q magic
word to the fisherman from the tide fats
far inland. Theirs is the golden fleece
for which the Argonauts Of the land
locked harbor set their prows to the
eastward in the starlight. A pull on the
sheet and it is full-and-by to the south
east, with Minot's Light looming gray
dead ahead in the gray wash of breakers.
Black-headed gulls swing across your
wake, and in their laughter rings wild
note of sea freedom. Thus the Vikings
laughed as their boats won to seaward
outside the black cliffs.
The cod is the solid citizen of the sea.
In some localities they call him the
ground keeper, and he seems to be that
"a sort of land owner of the sea bottom.
Just as ashore most substantial success
comes from land-holding, and those who
own the earth are almost invariably
financial magnates also, so the cod is a
banker. Some people, not financial mag
mates themselves in all probability, have
given this substantial dweller Of the
Underwater plateaus undignified names.
They call him pilker, scrod, groper, etc.
This is pure envy. When he bites it
means business. There is none of the
bait-stealing tomfoolery of the Gunner,
none of the dancing hilarity of the pol
lock. 1t is just steady down tug that
makes the line cut your fingers and likely
takes your hand under water. 1fhe is
good one you will need to sit back and
snub the line over the gunwale in that
first plunge which follows the stab of the
hook. Then it is steady, muscle-grind-
ing pull to get him up. 1t is stogy,
heavy resistance which he offers. To lift
him out of his depths is a good deal like
explaining to middle-class Englishman
something that he does not wish to COM
prehend, but by and by, leaning perilous-
ly over the rail, you see his tawny bulk
coming up through a we'll of chrysoprase
lined with the scintillant gold of the i'm
prisoned sun. A lift and a swing, and
he is aboard. He may weigh anything
from few pounds up to score. Cod
have been caught weighing $50 pounds,
but not in Massachusetts, Bay of late
years.
A half mile to the east of Minot's and
southwark to beyond Scituate harbor
runs an irregular ridge along the sea
bottom at depth Of six to ten fathoms,
while to the east and west is deeper
water. Something like half mile far
Their eastward again you will find another,
both probably moraines of sand and
gravel on the sea bottom like those one
finds ashore. These ridges the fish seem
to frequent rather than the valleys be-
tween, and if you will ease your sheets
and, setting your boats prov little off
the wind, drift slowly along these ridges,
you will be able to cast your lines among
the best of the summer society. The cod
go into things only on the ground floor.
1t is a way substantial citizens have.
You will need to let your sinker strike
bottom and then lift it a little, but not
too far. A creased lead dropped will
show you variety of bottom. Here are
rocks, about which especially the cod
congregate and where sometimes giant
cunners dwell, there is sandy stretch
which is beloved of the big founders,
which when hooked, make gallant,
though unsteady fight before you get
them up.
l am always sorry for the founder.
He looks as if he might have once been
a fish of respectable, perhaps even beau
tiful shape and proportions, that had
met with an accident. He is shore
frequenter, especially when young, and
| cannot help thinking that in antedilu-
Wan days when mastodons were plenti
full and went wading they stepped on the
founders. A founder is shaped just as
if he had been run over by an Atlantic
avenue truck His eyes moved over onto
one side of his head, fleeing hand in
hand to escape the wheel. His mouth
was mashed fairly and seems to be per-
petuaIly calculating Help, murder"
and one side of him is still white as
snow with the fear of the affair. He
ought to be in cripples' home, but he
is not. Instead he is as jolly as sand
man and amply able to take care of his
wreck CT body, which is flat indeed but
fat. Necessity is the mother of inven-
ton. When the founder sees food that
he wants he falls upon it and holds it
slender fish would have no such chance.
northward from unknown feeding
grounds outside the Cape, the haddock.
There are people who call the haddock
"scoodled skull-joe," probably in deris-
ion because he is such dapper fish. He
is so silvery and neat that the black
stripe down his side seems to give him
the effect of being clad in the very latest
thing in summer trousers. The Banks
fishermen who sail from Gloucester and
are probably more intimately acquainted
with the personal affairs of fishes than
anyone else, say that the haddock,
though now reformed, has not always
been what he should be- The paddock,
they say, was once such young sport
and conducted himself in such unseemly
fashion that he was in danger of hell fire.
In fact, the devil, searching the Grand
Banks for whom he might devour, took
the shameless youngster between his
finger and thumb and held him aloft in
glee, saying, "You for the gridiron.
But the agile haddock, skilled in getting
out of scrapes, squirmed loose and fled
in the depths of the sea. In proof of
this adventure if you will examine a had
docks body just behind the gills you will
see the marks where the Old Boys fin
gers scorched him, the scars remaining
to this day. am not sure whether this
fable teaches us to be good or to be
agile.
With the cod, as often most intimately
with him in the homeless Goldfish box,
come the hake and the cusk, both rated
as inferior fish, though it is hard to see
why. The cusk in particular is esteem
ed by the fishermen for their own use
above any other fish that is taken from
tba travis IN tho hanLc co down into