Trawl iii stations Ply- mouth. TRAWLING.] the North Sea were first worked. A good deal of fish was then wasted, and thousands of haddocks were thrown over board again as soon as caught, for the fishermen were under orders not to bring ashore more than were likely to be sold whilst fresh. Even in comparatively recent years trawled haddocks were of little value, until the practice of smoking them, as had long been done in Scotland, was adopted at Hull, Grimsby, and other places; and now not a haddock is thrown away if it is in good condition when landed. It may be mentioned that round-fish, such as haddock and whiting, always suffer more or less in appearance when caught by the trawl, as they are liable to be knocked about by the crowd of fish in the small end of the net, especially when the trawl is being hauled up. They do not therefore fetcli a good price in the wholesale market, whilst haddock and whiting caught by the hook are always in demand, and it need hardly be mentioned that the Scotch haddock, so long famous for their excellence, both fresh and cured, are all caught with hook and line.
- The trawling stations in the west of England are Plymouth, and
Brixham in Torbay, and this method of Iisliing has been carried on from both places for probably upwards of 100 years, although the date of its commencement lias been by no means accurately ascer tained. 1 It is certain, however, that at the beginning of the present century the trawlers were comparatively few, and not half the size of those now at work. Plymouth docs not appear to have progressed so steadily in later years as Brixham, and this may be partly caused by the more frequent interruptions from bad weather at the western port. The south-westerly gales so common in winter are felt in all their violence on the fishing ground of Plymouth, and the heavy sea accompanying them sometimes puts a stop to fishing for two or three days at a time. The custom also at Plymouth of only fishing during the day and returning to harbour every evening must materially diminish the chances of the fishing being very profitable, xnd for some few years past the number of trawl vessels has not Brixham. averaged more than about 60. At Brixham, where trawling is be lieved to have originated, and iisliing h;us always been the chief industry, much more enterprise is shown. The trawlers there go to sea on Monday morning and remain at work till the next morn ing, when they return and land their fish. After an hour or so they again go off, and fish day and night till the next morning, and so on everyday till Saturday conies, when, having landed their fish, they come to anchor, get their sails down, and spend the rest of the day in mending their nets and putting everything in order for the next week s work. Sunday is a day of rest for all hands. The history of the Brixham fishery has a very important bearing on the charges that have been brought against the trawlers of destroying spawn and very young fish, and of gradually exhausting the fishing grounds on which they worked. The Brixham men, as a rule, keep to a particular stretch of fishing ground, extending from the Start Point, past Torbay, towards the neighbourhood of Portland, practically about twenty miles long and of variable breadth, but mostly from three to eight miles off the land. There is no record of how many trawlers there were at Brixham at the beginning of this century, but it is known that they were lew and less than half their present size. In 1852, however, there were 70 of them, 85 in 1S63, and in 1872 their number was about 100, besides 20 others which worked on this home ground during the winter ; and new vessels are being built every year, not only to make up for losses, but to add to the fleet. This small strip of fishing ground has certainly been worked for more than a hundred years, the fishing smacks have been steadily increas ing in number and have more than doubled in size, and yet there is no sign of the ground becoming exhausted. The greater demand for fish has no doubt encouraged the fishermen in their work, for they have obtained better prices for their fish ; but if the effects of trawling were the exhaustion of the fishing ground, the Brixham 1 Fronde, i i his History of England, vol. xii. p. 397 (cabinet edition, 1870), speaks incidentally of trawlers at Brixham so long ago as the time of the Spanish Armada. In his description of the English attack on the Spanish fleet, he says: "Drake, returning from the chase, came up with her [the Capitana, the admiral s disabled ship] in the morning. She struck her flag, and he took her with him to Torbay, where he left her to the care of the Brixham fishermen. . . . The prize proved of unexpected value. Many casks of reals were found in her, and, infinitely more important, some tons of gunpowder, with which the Roebuck, the swiftest trawler in the harbour, flew in pursuit of the fleet." The "Roebuck" is spoken of, iu another account of the attack, as Sir Walter Raleigh s ship, and therefore, no doubt, an armed vessel ; and we have been unable to find any evidence of there having been trawlers at Brixham at that date (1588). 241) fishc-iy should have come to an end many years ngo. It has, how ever, never been so prosperous as during the last few years. Every one at Brixham is more or less interested in the success of the fish ing ; the actual condition of the fishery is generally understood, and the savings of the fishermen and many of the trades-people of the place are invested in it year after year. The trawlers do not work for weekly wages, but on the share principle, and the master is generally owner or part-owner of the vessel. It is consequently the interest of every one on board to do his best to make a suc cessful fishing, and the fact of the owner being in command insures due attention to economy in working, so that, whilst no necessary expense; is spared in keeping the sails and gear in proper order, everything is made to last as long as possible. Brixham has been long considered the "mother-port" of the trawlers, the place where the system of beam-trawling originated ; but although Barking, once famous as a iisliing station, disputes the honour with her, there is no doubt that Brixham men have led the way in developing this particular method of fishing to its present large proportions. More than forty years ago some of the Brixham vessels went to Kami-gate and fished the grounds at that end of the Channel. Others joined them and permanently settled there, and now there are upwards of 160 sea-going trawlers belonging to the port. Ten years later Hull was colonized from Brixham and liamsgate, and Grirnsby from Hull at a subsequent period ; Avhilst as early as 1818, Brixham smacks and fishermen passed over to Dublin to commence deep-sea trawling in Irish waters. The important rise of Hull as a trawling station dates from Hull. 1845, soon after the discovery of the famous Silver Pit, at the south end of the Dogger Bank. Before that time the numl er of North Sea trawlers was very small ; they were only of about half the size of most of the smacks at present ; and not enough was known of the fishing grounds to tempt the fishermen so far from land in vessels of such little power. For a long time, however, the line fishery for cod and haddock had been carried on in the neighbour hood of the Dogger, but in vessels specially constructed for the purpose. The Great Silver Pit, so called to distinguish it from a smaller Silver Pit much nearer the land, was first worked over during a very severe winter, we believe, in 1843. Two fishing grounds called the Well Bank and Botany Gut had been explored and dis covered to be very productive ; and between them and the Dogger, and bearing true east from Flamborough Head, the Admiralty chart showed a bed of deeper soundings, ranging in some parts from 30 to 40 fathoms, and the whole extending for about sixty milc.-i east and west, and from six to ten miles in breadth. The patch was marked " Outer Silver Pit," and on trying it with the trawl, in the deeper parts at the western end and near the middle, soles were found during that very cold season in almost incredible numbers ; the nets were hauled up bristling with fish trying to escape through the meshes, and such enormous catches were made as the most experienced fishermen had never before thought possible. Of course it was not long before this remarkable discovery became known, and a migration of trawlers from Brixham and Kamsgate soon took place to Hull as a convenient station from which to work on this promising ground. With the breaking up of the cold weather, how ever, this extraordinary congregation of soles became dispersed; but more attention was from that time directed to the North Sea fishing generally, and in after years the Silver Pit has again been found very productive whenever the winter has been very severe, or, as the trawlers call it, in " pit seasons." The fact of temperature affecting the distribution of many kinds of fish, shown in such a marked manner in this particularca.se, is now receiving systematic attention from the Meteorological Society of Scotland in connexion with the herring fisheries, and very important results have appar ently been obtained from an inquiry into the same subject on the coasts of Nova Scotia. The value of the North Sea fishery soon became established, and nothing in the history of our sea fisheries is more remarkable than the rapid but steady development of the system of trawling which has taken place from the II umber ports. The Hull trawlers were 40 in 1845, and most of these were arrivals from the Channel ports, as previously mentioned ; but in 1863 they had increased to 270, and in 1877 there were 440 first-class fishing craft, with an aggregate of 26,310 tons, on the Hull register, these, excepting a few shrimping boats just over 15 tons each, being all trawl-smacks. Another port on the Humber, Great Grimsby, situated nearer Crimsl the entrance of the river, has made still greater progress. It had for some years been known in connexion with the North Sea cod fishery ; and the practice of bringing home the cod alive in welled vessels, and keeping them so till they were wanted for the market, led to the selection of Grimsby, rather than the more important town of Hull, as better suited, on account of the greater purity of the salt water, for preserving the cod in good condition in the floating store chests ; and the extension of the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire railway to the port provided the facilities for sending away the fish to the various inland markets. In 1858, when the railway was nearly completed, five of the Hull trawlers made Grimsby their headquarters, and in the following year the IX. 32
