Dried fish

“ The abundance is so great and they are so easily caught that I was much surprised. Many fish are dried, especially those that are fat. Those who have a line can catch as many as they please. Most of them are caught with the hook or the spear, as I know from personal experience, for when I went out several times with the line, I was surprised that I could pull out one fish after another, and, through the clear water I could see a large number of all kinds, whose names are unknown to me. They cannot be compared with our fish, except the herring, which is caught and dried in large numbers. ”

“ Clams, cockles, and shell-fish are captured by squaws, such an employment being beneath manly dignity. Fish, when caught, are delivered to the women, whose duty it is to prepare them for winter use by drying. No salt is used, but the fish are dried in the sun, or smoke-dried by being hung from the top of dwellings, then wrapped in bark, or packed in rude baskets or chests, and stowed on high scaffolds out of the reach of dogs and children. Salmon are opened, and the entrails, head, and back-bone removed before drying. ”

“ We often hear the fact regretted, that so many of the larger Fish live almost entirely by devouring smaller species. And taking into consideration the immense quantities consumed by mankind each year, not only as they are caught fresh from the water, but the hundreds and thousands of barrels and cans of dried and pickled Fish that are shipped all over the world from the great Salmon and Cod and Herring fisheries, it is sometimes thought that, in time, the different species of Fish must surely be exhausted. ”

“ Whenever it is low-water, they must rise to pick shell-fish from the rocks, and the women, winter and summer, either dive to collect sea-eggs, or sit patiently in their canoes, and with a baited hair-line jerk out small fish. If a seal is killed, or the floating carcase of a dead whale discovered, it is a feast. Such miserable food is assisted by a few tasteless berries and fungi. ”

“ There are also migratory fish in fresh water, like the white fish, the salmon, trout, and the siscowet, which live in the abyssal depths of the great lakes and swim up into the shallows and creeks in winter to spawn their eggs, and the brook trout and dace, which for a similar purpose ascend from the pools and quiet meadow stretches to the pebble-paved ripplets near the spring sources of the brooks in which they live.
Having, in a general way, classified fish according to their habits, we are in a position to consider the manner in which man has succeeded in exterminating them. ”

“ This is the effect of a spate—which is, after all, only a dose of earth—upon wild trout.
The mould should be mixed with water in a bucket, and, when the water is very thick and muddy, poured into the rearing boxes. The water in the rearing boxes should be so thick that neither the bottom nor the young fish, except when they come to the surface to take some passing particle of food, can be seen. The amateur should not wait till something goes wrong before giving this dose of earth; it is advisable to give it once a week at any rate, and oftener if the fish seem to be ailing in any way. ”

“ For it is the nature of fish in cold weather to lie as close and deep as they can; so that nothing but the pangs of death shall make them move. If no holes are broke, they will rise and stick to the ice, and be frozen to it; if there be holes, they will move about them, as if they came up for fresh air.
When the frost hath continued long, and hard, that you begin to suspect your fish, you may make a trial by cutting holes in several places, some in the middle, and some by the sides of the waters that are obnoxious ”

“ In the sluggish streams that abound in "ten degrees of more effulgent clime," the fish partake of the slimy properties of their native element; it is only in the limpid waters of the North that they are found of flavor so unexceptionable as to please an epicurean taste, or exalt them to the dignity of a staple of commerce. Fish possess peculiar qualities to commend them as an article of food, independent of the arbitrary preference of the epicure. ”

“ They do not love the warm water, but usually avoid it. Several persons with whom I talked on the subject while in the park assert that diseased fish—that is to say, those which are thin and affected with flesh worms—are more commonly found near the warm water; that they take the bait readily but are logy. ”

“ For fly-fishing for salmon, trout, and black-bass, the polished enamelled waterproof, tapered, silk lines have entirely superseded the old hair, and hair-and-silk lines. For fresh-water trolling and bait-fishing, there are the hard-braid linen lines and the oiled silk braided lines, and pure boiled or raw-silk for minnow-casting for black-bass, and so forth. [318]
Good leaders are a very important portion for an angler’s outfit, and more fish are lost through the use of poor gut and improper snelling than from any other cause. ”

“ It hides amongst the sea-weed at the bottom of the sea, and the fleshy shreds attached to its nose, floating about in the water, act as natural bait, and attract the unwary little fishes in its neighborhood, but the instant one of them makes a bite at the tempting morsel it is whisked away, and the poor fish is caught in the huge mouth of the fisherman fish, and crushed up by its sharp teeth. ”

“ There are probably several species classed under the same name as this fish, and itself differs greatly in color and appearance, according to its food, water or locality. There is no doubt that all fish, and more especially trout, change their hues according to the color of the water they inhabit, or even to the light or shade of their favorite haunts. It is supposed that they assimilate to the bottom where they are found, a provision of nature to protect them from their enemies of the air. ”

“ The edible fishes at first diminish, then, as the process goes on in geometrical ratio they decrease more rapidly, and the operation becomes accelerated at every step, till the stream or lake which once abounded with excellent fish is utterly and absolutely denuded and left sterile, bare and unproductive. ”

“ Even in streams where a successful deposition of the ova has been accomplished, there never appears, as far as my observations have gone, any disposition in the parent-fish to return to the sea. Their instinct still prompts them to keep swimming up-stream, until you often find them with their noses worn quite off, their heads bruised and battered, fins and tail ragged and torn, bodies emaciated, thin, and flabby; the bright silvery tints dull and leaden in hue, a livid red streak extending along each side from head to tail, in which large ulcerous sores have eaten into the very vitals. ”

“ In the mouths of streams or rivers, they take large quantities, by weirs made of bushes, but the most common method is pursuing the fish into shoal water, and spearing them, or as they lie basking on the surface. During calms, they walk over the mud and sand-banks, in search of flat fish, which are easily detected while lying at the bottom. At night, too, they light torches of grass-tree, and thus see the fish at the bottom, apparently asleep, when they very readily spear them. ”

“ They are dexterous in capturing other fish with their darts, which they strike down upon the finny prey, either from their rafts, or by wading up to their knees in the water. They also take fish by torchlight,—that is, by kindling dry grass, the blaze of which attracts certain species into the shallow water, where the fishers stand in wait for them.
When the fishery fails them, and the oysters and muscles become scarce, they are often driven to sad extremities, and will then eat anything that will sustain life,—lizards, insects, worms,—perhaps even human flesh. ”

“ This fine fish is a native of the Old World, where it is found both in rivers and lakes, but prefers still waters with a soft muddy bottom, in which it can grovel with its snout in search of food. During the winter, too, it often buries itself completely in the mud, and there hibernates, remaining perfectly torpid until the return of warmer weather. It is not at all an easy fish to catch, for it is so wary that it will refuse to touch any bait in which it thinks that a hook may be concealed. ”

“ The red-fleshed and oily fish cannot be eaten too soon after they are out of the water. If kept they should be cleaned and wiped very dry, and laid on ice, or on stones in a current of air, when ice cannot be obtained. ”

“ If, as many suppose, the earliest fish are those which have soonest spawned during the preceding autumn, and have since descended towards and recovered in the sea,—then a precocious spawning would necessarily lead to the speediest supply of clean fish in mid-winter ”

“ It enhances our sense of the grand security and serenity of nature, to observe the still undisturbed economy and content of the fishes of this century, their happiness a regular fruit of the summer. The Fresh-Water Sun-Fish, Bream, or Ruff, Pomotis vulgaris, as it were, without ancestry, without posterity, still represents the Fresh-Water Sun-Fish in nature. It is the most common of all, and seen on every urchin’s string; a simple and inoffensive fish, whose nests are visible all along the shore, hollowed in the sand, over which it is steadily poised through the summer hours on waving fin. ”

“ Here will be found hydroids, sea-anemones, starfishes, sea-urchins, barnacles, mussels. In the shallow water, crabs and shrimps are crawling along the sandy bottom or are lying concealed in the mud, while schools of little fishes scoot across the pool. If a fine silk net is drawn through the water and then emptied into a glass dish a whole new world of creatures will be revealed—jellyfishes, ctenophores, hydroids, eggs of fish, tiny copepods, the larvae or young of sea-urchins, starfishes, or oysters. ”

“ It seems almost incredible that fish should inhabit water so cold, so opaque, and so torrential, and should find there any kind of nourishment. They make their way up by keeping close to the bank, and are able, even in that milky current, to perceive and snatch the unfortunate worm or grub which has been washed into the flood and is being hurried along at headlong speed. Only the trout has the courage, strength, and love of nearly freezing water necessary for such a life—no other fish ventures into such conditions. ”

“ One species of fish has the lower jaw turned down into a hook, which enables the animal to hold its mouth close to the plant, as it glides up or down, sucking in all the soft pulpy food. The superabundance of gelatinous nutriment makes these swarmers increase in bulk with extraordinary rapidity, and the food supply of the people is plenteous in consequence. The number of fish caught by weirs, baskets, and nets now, as the waters decline, is prodigious. ”

“ They cannot attach themselves, however, to the bottom of the sea, and their retentive powers are weaker in the larger ones. These are the only2529 soft fish that come on dry land, and then only where the surface is rugged: a smooth surface they will not come near. ”

“ Fish of different ages are much inclined to destroy each other for food; and hence, in order to multiply them most rapidly, they should be kept in separate ponds until considerably grown, when they will take care of themselves. A spring sending forth a rivulet of clear water, and not subject to overflow in freshets, is the best location. Clear, cool water is essential to the trout, while some other fish will do well in warm and even roily water. ”

“ Some fish can be frozen [Pg 288] solid, and yet thaw out and resume active living. Some lie at the bottoms of deep pools through the colder periods, while many others, such as the minnows, chubs, and other kinds common in small streams, bury themselves in the mud, and lie dormant or asleep through the whole winter. On the other hand in countries where the long intense rainless summers dry up the pools, some fishes have the habit of burying themselves in the mud, which, with slime from the body, forms about them a sort of tight cement ball in which they lie dormant until the rains come. ”

“ For if there be either a water-current, or a fresh spring, no fish dies for frost. If an hard winter succeeds a very dry summer, the fish suffers most. If the ponds are large and deep, such as I have directed to be made upon the channel of water, which may not run but upon floods or rain, the fish will never die in frost there; but such waters you must look upon as the asylum for the securing the fish in extremity; and all that you can put in there alive, though through a hole in the ice, will certainly live. If the bank of a pond sews, it will preserve the fish in frost ”

“ But now dog-fish are often marketed as “flake.” The catch is generally a miscellaneous one of turbot, bream, plaice, whiting, hake, haddock, gurnet, sole, and brill, with a few lobsters, crabs, and eels, and when the undesirables among the fish, and the stones and the seaweed, are sorted out, frequently resolves itself into a dozen or so pair of soles, and a few baskets and “trunks” of other fish. ”

“ Although Trout are not migratory, yet, when they become large, they run up stream to purer water. The small Trout are carried down the stream against their habit, by the flushes of water or floods during the autumn months, being unable to stem the thickened torrent, which fills their gills with alluvial deposit, and hinders their respiration, whence they become weak and sickly. In this state of water all fish sicken more or less, and it destroys vast numbers in the{469} very young state. ”

“ The setting of hooks and lines is so simple an employment as to render a description unnecessary. The white fish are the principal object of pursuit: they spawn in the fall of the year, and, at about the setting in of the hard frost, crowd in shoals to the shallow water, when as many as possible are taken, in order that a portion of them may be laid by in the frost to provide against the scarcity of winter; as, during that season, the fish of every description decrease in the lakes, if they do not altogether disappear. ”