Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1885 edition. Excerpt: ... FISHING IN THE GREAT LAKES. A large proportion of the inhabitants residing upon the shores of Lake Superior, Michigan and Huron, are fishermen by profession, earning their living, not in the manner of the disciples of Isaac Walton, but by the use of pound nets. The ordinary angler when he casts Lis line in these great waters looks and feels exatperatingly diminutive by the side of these wholesale fish butcheries. It has been estimated that Lake Superior alone produces annually over two million white-fish and trout, say nothing of the other varieties taken, which would certainly number together another million. The labor and capital required in managing these fisheries is far greater than is generally supposed. The " plants " are usually made in deep water, sometimes to the depth of eighty or ninety feet. The places selected for planting pound nets is at the edge of banks or shoals where the water rapidly deepens. Here the fish rise and seek the edge of the shoal in quest of small fish, on which they feed. The "pot" of the net is shaped like a heart, and wings are extended from the larger end of the heart, where there is an orifice for the fish to enter In groping for the edge of the bank, the fish strike the wings, and, feeling along the wall of thread, they are soon entrapped in the heart, and are too unwise to contrive how to escape. The net is fastened to the bottom and kept in place by stakes or long slim poles of tamarack or maple, often ninety or a hundred feet in length. These have to be driven into the bottom six to eight feet. These stakes are peeled and smooth, so that rings, fastened in the end of the net, can run easily on them, up and down. When it is desired to "lift" a catch, three or four men go out in "pound boats," a...
