Herring fishery

“ This was the period of rapid increase in the number of steam-trawlers, of the exploitation of new fishing-grounds in distant waters, and of a great expansion of the herring-fishery.
There was thus no question of a general scarcity of fish. Fishing-boats were multiplying, and supplies increasing by leaps and bounds. Between 1891 and 1901 the average annual catch of plaice rose from 677,000 cwt. to 959,000 cwt., that of cod from 367,000 to 748,000 cwt., and that of herrings from 1,400,000 to 2,800,000 cwt. ”

“ The herring fishery, in different parts of the world, affords occupation and support to a great number of people. In Holland it has been calculated that formerly more than 150,000 persons were employed in catching, pickling, drying, and trading in herrings; and, on the different coasts of our own country, many thousands of families are entirely supported by this fishery. The principal of the British herring fisheries are off the coasts of Scotland and Norfolk ”

“ The herring is always found in shoals, and on some occasions are crowded so close together, as to fill the sea, at least so far as our implements can reach, from top to bottom. Ships are said to have been retarded in their course in passing through these shoals, and instances are recorded where these little fishes have been left by the ebbing of the tide in heaps three feet deep upon the shores for many miles in extent. It is universally credited among those conversant in the herring fishery, that no other fish will go into the middle of a shoal. ”

“ Estimating the gross produce of these four fisheries at only the same amount as the Scotch fishery, 2,400,000,000 Herring must be annually taken by these four nations—the British, the French, the Dutch, and the Norwegian. Yet the destruction of Herring by man is probably insignificant compared with that wrought by other natural agencies. ”

“ On the 21st he gave an address on the Herring. To describe the characteristics of this fish in the Eastern Counties, he says, might seem like carrying coals to Newcastle; nevertheless the fisherman's knowledge is not the same as that of the man of science, and includes none but the vaguest notions of the ways of life of the fish and the singularities of its organisation which perplexed biologists. His own study of the problems connected with the herring had begun nineteen years before, when he served on the first of his two Fishery Commissions ”

“ The high-sea fisheries for cod, haddock, hake, halibut, mackerel, herring, and so forth are on the whole not increasing in prosperity, the annual value being between one and two million pounds. The lobster fishery shows a markedly diminishing yield, the diminution having been progressive since about 1890, and being attributed to over-fishing and violation of the restrictive regulations. ”

“ The value of the herring fisheries is enhanced by the careful methods of smoking and salting, the export of salted fish being considerable. In the winter the largest boats are laid up and the remainder take to line-fishing. Middelharnis, Pernis and Zwartewaal are the centres of this branch of fishery, which yields halibut, cod, ling and haddock. The trawl fisheries of the coast yield sole, plaice, turbot, brill, skate, &c., of which a large part is brought alive to the market. ”

“ They do not seem, except on rare occasions, to take the artificial fly, but with bait not only furnish pleasant sport for ladies, but an admirable dish for the table.
The lake herring is found in many of the extensive waters of the West, but being smaller than the white-fish, is overshadowed by the reputation of the latter. It is a pretty fish, bites freely and plays well, but having to contend in delicacy against the white-fish, and in vigor against the trout, it does not receive the attention it deserves. ”

“ Afterwards, the laborious hauling in—one man at the headrope and the other at the foot. Contrary to a very general impression, the fish are not enclosed within the net, as in seining or in pictures of the miraculous draught of fishes. They prod their snouts into the meshes, and are caught by the gills. There may not be a score in a whole fleet of nets, or they may come up like a glittering mat, beyond the strength of two men to lift over the gunwale. Twenty-five thousand herring is about the burthen of an open beach drifter. ”

“ Many waters have been re-stocked with herring as a source of food for more valuable fish.
August comes, and the youngsters, now about the length of your finger, grown tired of the fresh water and the close margins of the pond, find their way to the Run, and follow their parents down its rough bed to a larger life in the sea. Here again hungry enemies await them. In untold numbers they fall a prey to sharks, cod, and swordfish. Yet immense schools survive, and thousands will escape even the fearful steam nets of the menhaden-fishermen and see Herring Run again. ”

“ This is lowered into the water, and hauled up when the fish are seen swimming above it. Many amateurs secure numbers of smelt by means of rod and line, fishing from piers, jetties, &c. They bite freely at almost any kind of bait, and will snap at an almost bare hook, with the tiniest fragment of the bait at its point.
The Herring family (Clupeidæ) contains some well-known food-fishes to which we need only casually refer. They are mostly littoral species, none inhabiting deep water, and none straying into the open ocean. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Very little spawning takes place during late winter and spring, i.e. just after minimum sea temperature. Each local race (or species) appears to spawn at a constant time of the year. The date of the annual spawning, and hence the herring fishing season, varies from point to point round the coast. Herrings caught at different places show well-marked differences in appearance and quality, which are evidently due to differences in species and feeding ground. The food value of the herring will depend also upon the time of the year at which spawning occurs. ”

“ All these banks are breeding places of the most valued of our food fishes—the cod, haddock, cusk, hake, pollock, and halibut—and each in its proper season furnishes fishing ground where are taken many other important species of migratory and pelagic food fishes as well as those named here. It is probable that no other fishing area equaling this in size or in productivity exists anywhere else in the world, and the figures of the total catch taken from it must show an enormous poundage and a most imposing sum representing the value of its fishery. ”

“ Herring fishing is carried on at night, when the fish cannot see the nets. When a vessel or boat has cast out her nets, she hangs on to the lee (See note 2) end of them till the morning.
Besides these large herring luggers, many open boats are used; and great numbers of other boats from the coasts of Scotland and the North of England resort to these seas in the herring season. There is yet another class of vessels which frequent this coast. They are the deep-sea fishing smacks—cutters measuring from thirty to fifty tons, each carrying about ten men. ”

“ Since the spawning grounds of many kinds of fish are in shallow water, and the fish are at that time most easily caught, it happens that many of the most extensive fisheries are carried on in the spawning season. The delicious little smelts which our neighbors in Maine and New Brunswick send us by the hundred car-loads each winter, packed in little boxes of snow, are always full of eggs—so are the lake white fish, when they are caught, and the shad, and the Potomac herrings, and the cod, and the mullet, and the herring, and in early spring the mackerel. ”

“ As the trawl is absolutely necessary, on the one hand, for capturing fish which frequent the bottom, so, on the other, the drift-net is essential for those whose resort is the upper portion of the sea. It is by this method alone that fish like the herring, the mackerel, and the pilchard—which may be termed surface fish—are caught in great quantities for food supply. ”

“ There is no need to begin with the vast herring-fishing industry, with its distant markets at Billingsgate, Liverpool, and Manchester. The reform might begin at once on a modest scale. Beside the herrings, one sees every morning other fish lying on the quay—skate, cod, ling, whiting, rock-salmon—brought in by the smaller and less venturesome boats by dozens, not by lasts of ten thousand. ”

“ The little herring is the most valuable of all the sea fish. Enormous numbers are captured in nets, and still greater numbers form the food of other fish. The herring has so many enemies that it must increase rapidly in order to hold its place in the sea. Nature has arranged that this fish should produce twenty thousand or more eggs at each spawning season. It is thought that if only two eggs out of this great number hatch and grow up, the supply of herring will be maintained. ”

“ Herrings—Chimæra Monstrosa—Cure for Ringworm—Cold Tea Leaves for inflamed and blood-shot Eyes—An old Incantation for the cure of Sore Eyes—A curious Dirk Sheath—A Tannery of Human Skins.
However unproductive the herring fishing season may be quoad herrings, and this has so far been the worst of a series of bad seasons [September 1870] , it rarely fails to provide more or less grist for our mill in the shape of some rarity in marine life worth chronicling. A very ugly and repulsive-looking fish, extremely rare too, was sent us recently for identification. ”

“ The fishermen, in drawing the seine on shore, would pile the herring knee-deep for twelve or fifteen feet landward, and then walk or wade through the mass, thrusting in their arms and picking out the shad. The herring so stacked would be sometimes sold for a mere trifle, sometimes be given away; often, although an edible fish, and perhaps superior in that respect to the common herring, would be carted off for manure; and sometimes, for lack of even that demand, would be allowed to float away upon the rising tide. ”

“ The wholesale fishery is carried on by small fishing smacks or “bangers,” as the fishermen popularly term them, each of which is constructed with a large deep well, into which the fresh sea-water is allowed to enter by means of a grating. This is for a double purpose, viz., to keep the fish alive after taken as long as possible, and also to enable the cod-smack to remain at sea as long as may suffice to catch a good supply of fish before proceeding to that part of the coast where there may be a market for them. ”

“ There is no summer netting there now. Those waters and Lepreau Bay were formerly very productive fishing grounds, it being not unusual to take 5,000 (count) big herrings (food fish) in a single haul. These were mainly spring and winter fishing grounds for large herring. The fish seem to have disappeared from all these grounds at about the same time. [10]
"In past years (25 to 30 years ago) small herring were driven ashore in such quantities by their enemies—squid, silver hake and dogfish—that it sometimes became necessary for the authorities at St. ”

“ The herring, salmon, and lobster fisheries are all of more or less importance, and the perils attending the prosecution of the former are many. The herring-fishing industry is subject to fluctuations every season. At one time there was a great trade in the famous Labrador herrings, but this has practically dwindled to nothing. This disappearance of large and well-known schools of herring from the Labrador coast has called forth many explanatory theories. ”

“ True marine fishes, such as the herring,37 haddock, plaice, cod, associate in vast numbers at spawning time, choosing a locality in which the temperature and food supply will be favourable to the development of the young larvae. Generally, the spawning ground is in deep water. The eggs are buoyant, and drift up to the warm surface water and hatch out amongst the plankton. The herring differs from most other pelagic fish in laying its eggs in relatively shallow water, over a rocky bottom covered with seaweed. ”

“ THE HERRING FISHING INDUSTRY Herrings abound in the waters round the coast of Great Britain. Ordinarily they are widely scattered in deep water, but at certain times of the year they come together in shoals in the warmer water near the surface for the purpose of spawning. It is at this time that they are of greatest value for food purposes and, being gathered together in shoals, are most economically caught. ”

“ When fishing in a trout stream the heron stands looking more like a lump of drift-stuff caught in the bushes than an animate object. Gaunt, consumptive, and sentinel-like, the bird watches with breast depressed and poised upon one leg. Woe to the tiny trout or samlet that comes within reach of its formidable pike, for it is at once impaled and gulped down. This impalement is given with great force, and a wounded heron has been known to drive its bill right through a stout stick. Nothing from fry to mature fish comes amiss to the heron, and the young consume great quantities. ”

“ When these towns, once so exclusively maritime, found the fishery slipping through their fingers, they took up shoe-making, and at present you will see plenty of Crispins, but not many blue-jackets, in Marblehead. Cobbling is now carried on in the barn-lofts, fish-houses, and cottages. Yet this change of condition is not met, as in the failing whale-fishery, by a supply from a different source; fish continues to be as highly esteemed and in greater request than ever; it is the supply, not the demand, that is diminishing. ”