Page 18. MAINE COASTAL NEWS November 2011 KIDS FISHING AROUND BEALS ISLAND Continued from Page 5.
Boys could go with their fathers, uncles, other family, or friends, probably just for the day. Scalloping had its hazards as do other marine fisheries. The drag would also bring up big “horse” mussels, and the sweet meats from them were very good, as scallops were, opened and eaten raw right aboard the boat. I don’t remember that there was any market for mussels of any size, such as there is for the smaller ones now.
Clamming was fun, if you only did it when you wanted to as a kid, or if you were digging clams to use for cod bait. Clamming commercially is hard work, yet some boys did it at young ages.
As you go around Alley’s Bay from Beals, cross the causeway at the Flying Place, and go around to the left toward the part of town called Alley’s Bay there is a beautiful inlet known as the Boat Cove. At low water there is a large expanse of beach and mud flats with a small little stream running down through it. When the tide is up the Boat Cove is filled with water and is really pretty. In the little stream in the Cove at low tide there were small fish swimming around, I guess you could say they were schooling, We called them minnows. I suspect they were baby herring or young ground fish, only an inch or two long. Let me tell you, commercial herring seining in those days and in the 1950s was a major fishery around Beals and neighboring islands and main land. As mentioned, there were three sardine factories in Jonesport, plus many others up and down the coast. All sardine factories are gone now. Some of us went seining in the Boat Cove. We would take a big onion sack, a piece of real seine, a potato sack, or some other such net and seine those
minnows in the Boat Cove stream. Some boys who had family in commercial weir seining or stop seining could go to the weirs or to the stop seine sets and watch and learn or help take out herring and load the sardine boats that would take them to the factories. A saying around home, having to do with store credit, was, “You can get credit if you have herring scales on you boots.” Each weir was named. We had the Molly Cove weir in the Eastern Bay, and I helped with that. At certain times, seemingly well known to the mackerel, they would school up in the Flying Place, a cove between Beals Island and Great Wass Island. The head of the cove was shut off by a lobster pound dam and the causeway. As I recall, the schooling “classes” would occur in the evening, or at least some of their sessions. It was an adven- ture as a kid to be taken by boat to the Flying Place to jig mackerel. They schooled so tightly all you had to do was throw your jig into the water and haul the line back and likely you’d have a nice mackerel. They are very lively, and they are very good eating. Haking was another commercial fishery in which some of the boys got involved. Hake are a ground fish and they get very large. There was a season to catch hake. Hake would be fished by trawls. Trawls are long lines set on the ocean bottom known to be good places to catch hake. The long ground limes would have short lines with hooks (ganjins) tied on every few feet, several hun- dred to a trawl. The baited trawls would be coiled in big tubs and set as the boat moved along. The ends of the trawl would be an- chored with marker buoys. The trawl would be hauled back, fish unhooked and thrown into the kid board pen built for them in the boat, and the ground line with hooks coiled
in the tubs. Each boat might have about six or eight tubs of trawls. When the day’s trawling was completed they’d head for home, some- times a long run, depending on the bottom they’d fished. A day’s catch could be from a few hundred to a few thousand pounds. It was good to see boats’ quarter guards under water, because they had a good trip. You could tell if a boat had been haking because the white paint inside the boat and house would be blackened because of something emanating from the hake. Someone said, with a bit of hyperbole, that hake were rotten when they were caught. Corned hake were deli- cious. When the boats came in the men often paid boys to bait the trawls for the next day. I, and some others, baited trawls. The hooks were baited with fresh herring cuttings, ale- wives, or such. We’d coil the ground line carefully in the tub (clockwise) and lay the baited hooks, point up, in an arc on the opposite side of the tub, back and forth, so they’d come out freely without snarling when being cast. As kids we were contributing to the haking industry. I made a small trawl and used the lower part of a nail keg for the tub. We’d set that trawl over by the red buoy off the Middle Factory, as one place in the Reach, where I could go in my rowboat. Hand-lining for cod, outside (big) pol- lock, and haddock was great fun, and for the younger boys would be with your father, grandfather, or some other adult, because it meant going “outside”. You’d go off shore a ways to spots known to the adults as good bottom for hand-lining cod, the principal catch expected. One good place was off of Sand Island. There were places east and west of that, such as easterly down off Moose Peak Light. Hand-lining was done with heavy steam tarred twine on a wooden reel about
afoot long and nearly as wide, a one or two pound lead sinker, and large hooks maybe at least an inch across. Bait could be fresh herring or clams freshly shelled. Salted bait may have been used commercially on long fishing trips, but for a fun day for a kid the fresh bait usually worked. The first time I remember going hand-lining for cod was with my Grandfather Lad Simmons. He had a tor- pedo stern boat about 28 feet long. He got things ready and Mama (Thelma) must have packed our lunch. We went down through the Eastern Bay and stopped off Moose Peak Light. Probably he picked up someone’s trap buoy as a temporary anchor and we started fishing. Sure enough, a big cod took my bait and I had caught my first cod fish! I was quite young, and very pleased. The cod was a big one! To help Beals historians figure when it was, on the way home he went up to the west’ard and in through the Western Bay and into Deep Cove. The Deep Cove pound was being built and Papa sailed in through the dam and into what would be the pound. Dad took me cod fishing, too, generally outside of Sand Island. He would pick up a buoy to anchor with, too. Dad made sure I knew the mechanics of catching codfish: bait your hook properly (or hooks if you were fishing a pair), drop your hook(s) and lead over- board, let your line pay out until your lead hit bottom, haul back a few feet, and saw(jig) your line and be alert for a cod to take the bait. Cod are not very lively on your line, they sort of sag, but you know they are there. It’s good fun to haul them up, get them off the hook, and try it all over again. Cod are delicious slack salted and dried, and also heavily salted and dried, then soaked out and boiled with pota- toes and covered with fried out salt pork fat. Occasionally a haddock or pollock would take your bait, as might a halibut, dogfish, or flounder. If you’re a young kid it really doesn’t make much difference what bites as long as you are catching fish. Epilogue
Lois and I have had the privilege of taking our children, Ann and Steve, pollock fishing at the wharf, where they have enjoyed the thrill of catching fish. The kids each had a lobster trap that we fished and got lobsters from. I’ve taken all five of our grandchildren fishing in one place or another. Jessie and Julie caught pollock at the wharf, to their great delight. I hope the family will continue to enjoy the wonderful world of fishing.
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