pennsylvania angler 1953 - Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission

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10 Shad gill nets at night on the Delaware, about 1900. Pennsylvania romance of the shad by william boyd THREE hundred years ago shad and other migratory fishes annually ascended the Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers and their tributaries in such vast numbers that the shallows were beaten into foam by their struggles to reach spawning waters. As soon as the shad appeared on their annual journey to the spawning beds the Indians, who found them a prolific source of food, became busy. They placed large stones close together in the water so as to make a huge V-shaped pen. Then every redskin in the village or villages, if friendly feeling prevailed, fell in line across the river, and moving slowly toward the open end of the driveway, yelled at the top of their voices and beat the water vigorously with brush.. Affrighted, thousands of fish swam straight into the pen built for them and, when they were well within, escape was barred by a huge net stretched across the entrance. Thus the PENNSYLVANIA ANGLER
W l fish were imprisoned to be slaughtered at leisure by their captors. The vast abundance of fish in the rivers and streams of the colony of Pennsylvania excited the astonishment of early European settlers, prepared as they had been beforehand by tales of the multitudes of animal and fish life in the new world. Eventually, the fame of the fishing, especially that of shad in the Susquehanna, reached the hardy and thrifty settlers of Connecticut, and many of them left their homes in that part of the country, settled in the picturesque Wyoming Valley from Wyoming to Tioga Point, now known as Athens. These Connecticut Yankees brought their nets with them and each neighborhood established a fishery for its own accommodation. For a long time the chief food of these hardy people was taken from the river. Soon after their arrival trouble arose between them and the government of Pennsylvania over the right of possession of the Wyoming Valley. A war began that lasted 30 years, during which time buildings, farm produce, and personal effects were destroyed by fire or carried away as plunder. Everyone suffered. For much of this time the Connecticut settlers had to live almost altogether on fish caught in the river. Sometimes it was difficult to obtain even these for, according to records, it was a matter of bitter complaint in MAY—1953 1784 the Pennamites had destroyed their seines, and so reduced them to the verge of starvation. The bloodshed through which they passed left the settlements with so many widows and fatherless children that special provisions of bounty had to be made for them. In this .situation, fish formed the chief item. An arrangement was made among the fishermen by which one of the hauls at each fishery every year was given to the widows and the fatherless of the neighborhood, and to this was given the name of the "Widows' haul." By common consent it was agreed that the widows were to have every fish of a haul made on the first Sunday after the shad fishing commenced. In one of these annual hauls it is said that at a fishery known as the Stewart, about midway between Wilkes-Barre and Plymouth, 10,000 shad were caught and turned over to the fund. Records coming down from that day tell how ten men would form themselves into a company for the purpose PHOTO BY BOB MOTTER of establishing a shad fishery. They raised the flax, their wives would spin and make the twine, and the men would knit the seine. With the river an average of 40 yards wide, the seine would be from 60 to 80 yards long. The shad congregated mostly on shoals near the point of some island for spawning and there the fisheries were generally established. Shad fish ing was done mostly at night, commencing soon after dark, and continuing until dawn of the next day, when the shad caught would be made into as many piles as there were "rights" in the seine. One of their number would then turn his back and another would touch them off saying, pointing to a pile, "who shall have this, and who shall have this," and so on until all were disposed of. The happy fishermen would often go to their homes well laden with the spoils of the night. Knitting the nets was done on rainy, cold days and evenings. The nets were knit in sections by the shareholders, each one owning so many yards of the net, and each one receiving his share of the fish according to the number of yards owned. When the sections were all done, one or two of the most skillful would knit them together and hang them, putting on the corks and leads. The early shad fisheries were not common property. The owner of the soil was the owner of the fishery, and no one was allowed to fish without a permit. When the owners were not using the seines they often rented them out to others and took pay in fish. Records which go back to 1787 disclose that one Caleb Wright purchased a half interest in a fishery between Shickshinny and Nanticoke, called the Dutch Fishery. For this share he paid $53.33. In connection with this particular case there is a note which gives an idea of the vast amount of fish that must have ascended the Susquehanna in those days, it being related that a son of Caleb Wright once received as his share of one night's fishing alone 1,900 shad. In those days a right in a fishery was worth from $10 to $20, while once in a while such a right was held at as much as $100. To the holders of these rights the returns apparently were large. One Jonathan Hunlock's half interest in the Hunlock Fishery was considered worth from $500 to $600 a year. Others ran from $300 to $400 a year, while sometimes from $30 to $40 a night was taken in by fishermen. These fisheries netted some $12,000 annually. Not long before the migration of the shad was prevented by the damming of the Susquehanna there were about 40 permanent fisheries between Northumberland and Towanda. At Northumberland, or just below, was Hummel's Fishery. Between Danville and Northumberland there were eight fisheries. Then there was another {Turn to page 25) 11
Page 1 and 2: •SpS , ¥ *?%!£ 1*. ^is jp mSST
Page 3 and 4: COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA HON. J
Page 5 and 6: L MAY—1953 the I. NOR'WESTER over
Page 7 and 8: There's Fish in the Old Canal Again
Page 9 and 10: CANAL WAS DRAINED in late autumn pr
Page 11: CANAL TODAY looks like this ln many
Page 15 and 16: ••^•••••m return of t
Page 17 and 18: (usually dark), with a definitely f
Page 19 and 20: k, I County. DON SHINER PHOTO beaut
Page 21 and 22: the strip lead, hence will describe
Page 23 and 24: THE Basic problem of dry fly castin
Page 25 and 26: striped bass a hook-and-line game f
Page 27 and 28: advised to accept, if offered, othe
Page 29 and 30: The line should be well greased to
Page 31 and 32: cade of cars containing sportsmen,
Page 33 and 34: %i Large trout have also been nette
Page 35 and 36: Ir ^M*ass the Worms Pappy!* 3 Yep

pennsylvania angler 1953 - Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission

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