November 2011 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 5. KIDS FISHING AROUND BEALS ISLAND By Arthur S, Woodward


Wanna go fishin’? Yeah, let’s go, the tide is coming! This could be the question excitedly asked and the enthusiastic answer between two pals on Beals Island in the1930s-1940s when I was growing up there. It is still a viable question, I’m sure. Living on the Island we had many oppor- tunities to fish for several species of salt water fish. Summertime provided us with sev- eral fun types of fishing. Some were for fish to eat, some were to feed lobsters in the lobster car (a floating wooden three dimen- sional rectangle with heavy slats on the sides and bottom and a deck with big horizontal doors opening into the several pens into which the interior space was divided. So constructed, the lobster car provided free flowing sea water and provided good storage for lobsters), some were caught to use as bait, some were caught just for the fun of it, and some fishing provided sea creatures that were pretend lobsters caught with pretend traps. Some fishing was very serious com- mercial fishing.


We were fortunate to have wharves around the Island where lobster buyers bought lobsters from the lobster fishermen. Later, too, some buyers, My Dad (Vernal) included, sold bait from the wharves. Harbor pollack schooled around the wharves and as summer wore on they would have grown to close to a foot in length. They were relatively easy to catch and were very lively on the fishing line. They were shaped a good bit like a trout, and fought like a trout. Harbor pollock would take various types of bait. We’d bait on small pieces of herring (lobster bait), conckle meat (now they are called wrinkles or periwinkles and are used for human con- sumption), pieces of pollock previously caught, pieces of lobster meat from a shot off claw or tail from a dead one, etc. Pollack weren’t particularly selective in their food. In those days we simply had small wooden hand held reels maybe 4 inches long that held our twine, which might have been steam tarred line, or green or brown fishing line. The line had a small hook attached and a small lead sinker above the hook, or a jig. As noted, you’d bait the hook and drop it down from the edge of the wharf into the school of pollock and jig it a little. Next thing you knew, there would be a lively pollock on it, fighting to resist being hauled up. If, at times, the pollock wouldn’t be schooling, you could toll them up with a few pieces of bait (chum), or just jig your baited hook in the water, not too deep. The preferred times to go fishing were on the flood tide or around high water slack or the first of the ebb. If the wind was to the east’ard you probably wouldn’t expect the fishing to be too productive. One of my uncles, a very good fisherman, said even a


dog wouldn’t bite when the wind was to the east’ard.


Another method of catching pollock was dipping them. There were three sardine factories in Jonesport, across the Moosabec Reach. The William Underwood Company factory (where the Coast Guard base is now) was a prime place to dip pollock. You certainly could catch and jig pollock there, too. They had a large drain that let pieces of fresh herring and other byproducts of canning herring fall into the water by their wharf. The pollock would be feeding there in that efflux by the hundreds. To dip the pollock you needed a boat, preferably a dory, or some other able row boat, and a big brailing net, made to dip herring. The dory for me was easy to acquire, as we had one or two. Someone, I’m not sure who it was, had a brailing net. A brailing net is a big iron ring on a sturdy handle that had once been a tree trunk. The iron ring might have been on the order of six feet or so in diameter and from the ring hung a huge net bag with small mesh (possibly made from a piece of herring seine), maybe four or five feet deep. We’d row the half mile across the Reach when we knew Underwood’s was processing(packing) her- ring (“fish”) and go in near that drain. All you had to do was put that big net in the water into that roiling school of pollock and haul it back aboard your boat. Wow! For kids to catch that many pollock at one time was an incred- ible experience! We’d dip maybe a few hun- dred and head for home. If we were going to dry the pollock they had to be cleaned, which meant cutting off the heads, clubbing (re- moving the napes) and gutting them, slack salting them over night, and then laying them out on lobster crates, slats, flakes, or, hang- ing them on lines, whatever would provide air flow around them in the sun. They had to be watched to see that flies didn’t get in them and lay eggs, thus resulting in maggots. If fly damage would be imminent we’d use gener- ous treatments of black pepper on the inside of the fish. Once dried, pollock would taste some good. If properly cured and stored they’d keep a long time and make great eating in the winter. And, we’d have fun memories of catching them.


Another good opportunity to catch pol- lock was provided when we’d get to go to haul with a lobster fisherman. As he’d empty his bait pocket from the trap he’d just hauled pollock would often be there to feed. We’d have our hooks baited and be ready so that when he stopped and the pocket was dumped we’d be after the pollock. They’d readily take our bait and up they’d come into the boat, to our enjoyment.


It should be noted that pollock are deli- cious fried. For frying they should be rolled in flour and corn meal , with pepper and salt,


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and fried in a fry pan with a little oil. This is the same way you’d fry smelt, haddock, flounder, mackerel, maybe halibut and cod, and trout if you’d been stream fishing on the mainland a few miles from Beals.


If Dad had lobsters stored in the car for any period of time they’d need to be fed. One good lobster food was sculpin. We could catch sculpins at the wharf, usually with the hook about on bottom. Before Barney’s Cove was dredged it was shallow on low water. As you went slowly along you could see bottom. On bottom you could see sculpins, skates, and maybe flounders. If you wanted to spear these fish you, obviously, needed a spear. We had a spear. It had two prongs with barbs on them, and a pole for a handlemaybe10 feet long. Someone would slowly row the boat and the other fellow would stand in the bow and watch for fish on bottom. When you’d come upon a sculpin you’d drive the spear into him and bring him up into the boat and go for another one. Sometimes you might get a flounder. Then there’d be the occasional skate. One morning my buddy and I were out in the Cove looking for sculpins to feed the lobsters. He was rowing my rowboat. I spot- ted a skate on bottom, a very big one. I rammed that spear into him behind his head, and he was not very cooperative about being brought to the surface. I really struggled with him and he was too big and too heavy for me to lift. (I may have been about 12 years old) Finally, I had to admit that the big skate was too much for me and I pulled the spear from him and let him go. Now that’s a fish story of a little different sort...


We could make a pretend lobster trap out of a rock, maybe the size of your hand. Some string securely tied to the rock and a small


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painted wooden buoy tied on made a fine trap for conckles (“lobsters”). We’d make up a few of these traps and set them near the shore. We could tend them from shore sometimes, maybe with our play-boats, or from a rowboat or skiff. Conckles would move to the traps and fasten themselves on them. When we’d haul, the conckles would be still attached to the rocks.


Some of us might have had a couple real traps that we tended. Some boys went lobstering with their fathers or grandfathers. In addition to lobsters, traps caught crabs, sea cucumbers, sea eggs (urchins), big conckles that you could boil that had good tasting muscles about as big as your thumb (put vinegar on them), starfish, little lumps, sculpins, ground fish, sea spiders, hermit crabs, sea fleas, and sundry other species of marine life. Some boys started lobstering on their own at very young ages.


Rockweed (fucus) is a prolific marine plant on the rocks along the shores, from about the half tide mark down. Sometimes I imagined my rowboat was a lobster smack and I’d take long trips in her. At times she was a sardine boat. As a sardine carrier I’d row her out to Little Island (Mouse Island) on the western side of Barney’s Cove when the tide was down, pull in along side the rockweed covered rocks there, and pull the rockweed loose and load my sardine boat with it. I’d row around with her loaded until I decided it was time to unload the “herring”. I’d throw the rockweed overboard, and if so inclined, go back out there for another load.


Going scallop dragging was another good experience in the commercial fisheries.


Continued on Page 18.


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