Dear Sir,—
The undersigned has taken over the command of the schooner “West Wind,” and will fit out for salt fishing this spring.
Several fishermen have expressed their doubts as to my ability to catch fish and make a good stock. I wish to state that I will lay five hundred dollars with any man, even money, that I will, this season, be the high-line eight dory vessel of the Eastville Harbor fleet.
I am now picking up an eight dory gang, and want only young, hardy men and good fishermen. No married, tired, or nervous men need apply.
Yours for fish,
JUDSON K. NICKERSON.
The effect was wonderful! All the young, reckless spirits in the district camped on Nickerson’s doorstep and he had his pick of the best in making up his eight dory gang—sixteen young bloods, strong, single, and tough, and endowed with a dash of the sporting spirit which would ensure their being of the breed to “stand the gaff” in winning their skipper’s bet.
Nickerson was delighted. “That sure was a great stunt, Donny, boy,” he cried. “I’ve got a gang of young toughs—a bunch that’ll work ’til they drop an’ who’ll swing dories over when the gulls can’t fly to wind’ard! They’re the kind for makin’ a big trip ’cause they’ll work like the devil to beat the old timers, and they’ll fish when the married men an’ the’ narvous men’ll be for stayin’ aboard. I’d ha’ never thought o’ that stunt if it wasn’t for you, by Jupiter!”
“Do you suppose anyone will take up your bet?” enquired Donald somewhat anxiously. The other thought for a moment before answering.
“Yes!” he replied. “Some skipper will call me—some high-liner. Lemme see—who is there runnin’ eight dories? Wilson?—No, he’s too tight! Wallace?—A big family an’ no money to blow! It’ll be either Smith or Ira Burton. Burton will call me sure! He don’t like me sence I gave him a trimming for insulting little Vera Knickle. ... Yes, it’ll likely be Burton. He’ll itch to take my money an’ show me up as a windy bluff. Mark me, Donald, we’ll have Burton to fight against, and he’ll take some trimming, too!”
Jud Nickerson’s wager was the talk of the fleet and the news spread up and down the shore. Young fishermen came in from other ports to ask for a “sight” with Nickerson, and he regretfully turned them away. He had his gang now—a cracking good crowd—Jud Nickerson’s “hellions” they were called, and down on the wharves and in the outfitters and barber shops, the old skippers smiled sourly and “cal’lated that Jud Nickerson was agoin’ to fish lime juice fashion,” and they reckoned some day he would spring a surprise in the way of a vessel with “injy-rubber” dories that would stretch with a big load of fish, and leather sails for running a vessel to port in a breeze.
The West Wind was duly hauled alongside the wharf and her gang were aboard getting salt into the hold bins and rigging up their trawling gear. This was a job which Captain Nickerson advised Donald to “get hep to,” and he sat with the fishermen on the West Wind’s sunny decks practising the knotting of “gangens,”[1] the “sticking” of same into the “ground line” of the “trawl” or long-line, and the bending on to the gangens of the seven or eight hundred hooks which go to make up a seven-“shot” tub of trawl gear. The Eastville harbor fleet of twenty-five or thirty schooners were nearly all “salt Bankers”—that is, they engaged in a deep sea fishery on the off-shore “Banks” or shoal water areas of the Western North Atlantic, and their catch of cod, hake, pollock, haddock and cusk were split and put down in salt aboard the vessels. Cod, however, was the commonest fish caught, and when the salted catch was landed, it was prepared for export to West Indies and South America by being dried on racks or “flakes” exposed to open air and sun. Flakes, hundreds of feet long, were built on the sunny slopes of the hillsides around the harbor, and during the summer months these would be covered with hundreds of thousands of split salted codfish caught on the Banks from Le Have to Grand. When thoroughly dried these fish were graded, packed in casks and drums, and shipped to the West Indies and South America, where, as “bacalhao” it is much esteemed by the Latins and colored populations.
[1] Pronounced “gan” as in “began” and “gen” as in “gent.”
Donald knew a good deal about sailing a schooner, but he knew absolutely nothing about fishing in any form. His notion of “trawling” was steam trawling wherein a huge bag net was towed over the bottom by a steamer specially built and equipped for the purpose. In Scotland this method of deep-sea fishing was universal. Trawling, so-called, in Canada, was a different operation altogether, and consisted in catching fish by means of lines about 2,100 feet long, into which, at 28 or 40 inch intervals, a “snood” or “gangen” about 36 inches long was stuck and hitched through the strands of the main or “ground” line. To this snood or gangen was hitched a black japanned hook and from seven to eight hundred hooks depended to a “string” or “tub” of trawl gear. The whole of this long line was coiled down in tubs usually made from cutting down a flour barrel, and six to eight tubs of trawl went to each dory.
The dory is a flat-bottomed, high-sided boat peculiar to the North Atlantic coasts of the American continent. It is thus constructed for wonderful seaworthiness when properly handled, and by having removable thwarts and other fixtures, it can be “nested” within other dories on the schooner’s decks. From six to twelve such boats can be carried “nested” one within the other on the port and starboard sides of a vessel’s waist. From these dories, when launched on the fishing grounds, two fishermen set the long trawls with every hook baited and the line anchored along the bottom.