The North Atlantic Fisheries, 1100-1976 - University of Hull

Up to about 1850 the fishing was performed by small boats and
simple tools such as fish-spear, hand line, and long line (backefiske), but
in the second half of the century new equipment was tested. First the
purse seine and then in the early twentieth century, the Danish seine and
the trawl. The introduction of bigger vessels and steam-power made
fishermen on the Swedish west coast able to go out on the high seas and
to fish for other species than herring. For a long time, however, herring
dominated the catches. The catches in Bohuslän in 1918 can be used as
an example; they amounted to 94 million kg, of which herring accounted
for 70 million kg, mackerel 7.5, haddock 5.1, cod 3.3, whiting 2.0, ling
1.7, saithe 1.2 and sprat 1.1 million kg.
This survey deals with the period 1650-1950. The postwar period
witnessed a host of new problems, for instance new limits for territorial
waters, catch quotas and market fluctuations, issues which are best dealt
with in a separate paper.
West Coast Fisheries in the Literature
Literature, especially scientific literature, concerning fisheries both on
and from the Swedish west coast is rather limited. The works presented
in this section are selected, some of them as examples of contemporary
writing, others as modern scientific works with very good
bibliographies. In a further section other sources, including official
printing and statistical material will be considered.
Government encouraged fishing in the North Sea, on the English
and Scottish banks, around Iceland and even off Greenland to some
degree even during the eighteenth century. The so-called
Fiskerisocieteten in Stockholm was granted privileges in 1745 for
fishing and whaling on the high seas, i.e. the North Sea and Greenland
waters (Privilegium den 12 aug. 1745 på Sill- och Torsk-Fiskeri, samt
hwalfiske- och Skäl-fång för Handelsmännerne Abraham och Jacob
Arfwedson & Compagnie) and so was the Greenland Company in
Gothenburg. These enterprises were, however, of minor value during the
eighteenth and part of the nineteenth centuries. From c1850 there was an
obvious interest in high seas fishing. Two special companies were
founded in 1858 for promoting this kind of fishing and more modern
methods, for instance salting the catches at sea—dry salting.
However, not until around 1900 was there a real breakthrough of a
modern high seas fishing. In the literature listed below this development
and these kind of fisheries are described and evaluated.
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