Joak turned them out for breakfast next morning at four. It was black dark, and they ate in the light of oil lamps while the schooner tore along on her east by south course. “She’s run a hundred an’ twenty miles naow,” remarked a fisherman just relieved from his “trick.” “This one’s a grand little hooker to sail! Steers like a witch!” He sat down at the table. “I’m as hungry as a bear. Slap some o’ them beans on this plate, Westley-boy, an’ give th’ bread an’ butter a fair wind this way.”
At five, the Skipper shot the schooner up in the wind. “Take a cast of the lead, Don!” he cried, and when the youth gave him the sounding, “Thirty-five fathoms, sir!” he examined the tallow on the bottom of the lead. “Fine sand. Right! Call the gang, Donald! We’ll hoist the dories over here an’ spin the gear aout! There’s a fellow to wind’ard there dressing down fish.” As he went for’ard, Donald looked to the sou’west and saw the twinkle of torch-lights low down on the far horizon—unmistakable sign of a Banksman at work.
The men came from below, oil-skinned and booted, and with mittens and woollen caps on, for the air was biting and cold. They began getting the tubs of trawl, anchors and buoys ready, and scurried around picking up the impedimenta necessary for going overside in the dories. “Lower away top dories!” bawled Judson from the wheel. Though this was his first order as a fishing skipper yet he seemed to have adapted himself to the life as if he had known no other. The experiences of his younger days came readily to mind and hand and he carried on as though he had never seen the “lime-juice” merchant service.
The four fishermen who went in the two dories (nested on top of the port and starboard sets) placed their thwarts and pen-boards in position, kicked the dory-plug into its hole in the bottom of the boat, and saw to it that two pairs of oars, sail, water-jar, bait-knife, bailer, bow-roller and gurdy-winch were in place. Then they hooked the dory hoisting tackles into the bow and stern beckets of the twenty-foot boats, and with two men heaving on the fall of each tackle, they swung the dory to the rail. Throwing in anchors, buoys and buoy lines, they shoved the little craft out and lowered her into the water while Donald held her alongside by the painter. Joak did the same for the dory on the port side.
One of the fishermen jumped into the boat, while his dory-mate handed him down the tubs of baited trawls. “Set two tubs, boys,” advised the skipper, “and if fish are strikin’ we’ll spin th’ whole string. Pull to the east’ard when you’re setting your gear!” The two fishermen jumped into the dory and Donald allowed the boat to drift astern and belayed the painter to the taffrail pin.
Within a very short time, all eight dories were overboard with their crews in them, and the schooner towed them along in a string of four in line ahead from each quarter. Heading the vessel away from the schooner to windward, the skipper waved his hand. “Leggo port dory!” The last dory on the port string cast off. One man shipped the oars and pulled to the eastward, while the other hove the trawl-buoy over and payed out the anchor line. When the line had run out sufficiently for a thirty-five fathom depth of water, he bent the end of the baited line to the crown of the light trawl anchor and hove it overboard. Placing the tub of trawl-line before him in the stern-sheets of the dory, the fisherman commenced throwing the baited gear out by means of a heaving stick which he held in his right hand, while his dory-mate rowed the boat. It did not take long before the two thousand odd feet of trawl was whisked out and the end line of the second tub was bent to the tub-end of the first and shot overside in a similar manner. When the whole line was in the water, another anchor was bent to the baited gear and thrown over, and the fishermen hung to the anchor-rode until it was time to haul the trawl. With a buoyed anchor at the first end and another at the last end, the four thousand feet of line with its sixteen hundred baited hooks, was securely stretched along the sea floor, and in readiness to entrap the hungry cod and haddock which roamed over the bottom looking for food.
All eight dories were cast off from the schooner and all set their trawls at a distance of about half a mile from each other, and when the last dory was slipped, the skipper put the schooner about, and with the jumbo belayed to windward, the mainsheet eased off, and the wheel made fast a spoke from hard-down, the West Wind lurched along in that semi-hove-to condition known in fishermen’s parlance as “jogging.” Joak went to his galley to get dinner ready; Captain Nickerson shipped the fish-pen boards on the schooner’s decks between rail and cabin house, and Donald whetted dressing knives.
As they worked, Captain Nickerson kept up a running fire of explanations about the fishery, and Donald listened with increasing interest. “This manner of running dories aout is called making ‘flying-sets,’” said Judson, “and the schooners fishing fresh for market usually work this way. If we strike good fishin’ hereabouts, we’ll let go the anchor an’ ride to that big cable hawser, an’ th’ men will pull away from th’ vessel an’ set their gear all ’round her. Ef we do that, we’ll stow all th’ sail an’ hoist a trysail, or ridin’ sail on th’ main to steady her an’ keep her headin’ up to her cable. We’re only setting’ two tubs this time to try th’ ground aout, but ef fishin’s good, we’ll run four or six tubs an’ buoy them an’ leave them in th’ water. Th’ boys’ll under-run th’ trawls then—takin’ th’ fish off th’ hooks an’ re-baiting them without liftin’ th’ whole tub o’ gear out o’ th’ water. You’ll notice that each trawl buoy has a short stick with a black-ball or flag on it inserted into it. That marks th’ gear an’ enables us to pick it up easily. They’ll start ahaulin’ th’ lines in half an hour, an’ we’ll see ef there’s any fish hereabouts.”
They jogged past a dory which was hauling in their gear. A fisherman stood in the bow and pulled the line up from the bottom over a lignumvitæ roller fixed in the bow-gunnel. His dory-mate stood immediately behind him with the empty trawl tub, and as his mate hauled, he coiled the gear down in the tub again. “There’s a scale!” cried Judson. The fisherman in the dory had a big cod on his line and he lifted it up with his right hand and swung it deftly behind him with a sharp jerk which tore the hook out of the mouth of the fish and sent it wriggling into the penned-off fish pound in the dory bottom. Donald could see a number of fish being hauled up, and the skipper was scanning the other dories through his glasses. “They’re all gittin’ something,” he remarked. “I hope there’s fish here, for we’ve got to hustle. Ira Burton’ll have a full deck by naow I reckon, an’ he’s got plenty bait to keep him agoin’!”
They started picking up the dories shortly afterwards, and as they came alongside, Donald and Joak caught their painters and allowed them to drift abreast the quarters. Pitching and rolling in the swell, the fishermen forked the cod, haddock and pollock up into the deck pens—counting the catch as they threw the fish aboard. “A hundred an’ twenty-one!” sung out a fisherman. A couple of forks or “pews” spun over the rail, followed by the two dory-mates. “Tie yer dory astern,” said Captain Nickerson. “Go’n have a bite an’ spin aout four tubs. We’ll let go the anchor here.”