Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1884 — Trawling in the North Sea. [ARTICLE]

Trawling in the North Sea.

Trawling for fish on the shores of the North Sea has now become so vast an industry that some alarm has been raised lest the continuous dragging of the bottom of the sea by the immense fleets of steam and sailing vessels should exterminate the edible sorts of salt water fish. The line fishermen say the mesh of the trawl net is so small that it is impossible for the enormous quantities of fry that is drawn in it to escape. The consequence is that not only are the large fish captured, but the young, for which no maifliet can bo found, are destroyed. Trawls vary in size. Some are sev-enty-eight feet long,* and have abeam of from forty-eight to fifty feet, with trawl-heads of four hundred weight. The size of the mesh of trawl varies three and a half inches down to one and a half inches square. It i 3 admitted that the supply of soles has greatly fallen off; that they have become scarcer and dearer, and it is stated that in some places they do not even pay for the trouble and expense of catching. In the winter of 1844, when the Silver pits were first discovered, soles were found in enormous quantities, a single vessel getting as many as a ton and a ton and a half in one night. The price they yielded at that time was from 10 to 1G shillings a trunk, while the same quantity now would realize from £4 to £lO. It is pretty evident that the cause of this diminution in the takes is due to the destruction of fry.* Soles resort to the large estuvies to spawn, and in the winter thev go to the deep water. The suggestion has been made that, while the soles are on the spawning ground, inshore shrimptrawling ofiglit to be re-ttricted, aft. unless that is done, there is little chance of the roles attaining maturity and continuing the valuable and toothsome "article which they aye now. In fact, seme authorities assert that if some means are not devised to prevent the destruction of immature fish in the hays and estnaries, in,a very few years the sole will be a thing of the past.— London Teltgrnph.