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From: Bobbie Hall <>
Subject: [MABARNST] Cape Cod Pilot, Ch. 11, part 3
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 22:42:18 -0600
References: <200112191104.fBJB48Q10270@lists2.rootsweb.com>


======================================================================
Cape Cod Pilot, by Jeremiah Diggs, American Guide Series, published by
Modern Pilgrim Press, Provincetown, MA, 1937. This was a work
underwritten by the Federal Writers Project, Works Project
Administration (WPA) for the State of Massachusetts.
======================================================================

Chapter XI - PROVINCETOWN I [part 3]

Fishermen "never get seasick." Of course not. But the candid ones will
add that a northeast swell can make them "feel funny." A sou'west
blow, no matter how brisk, has no effect; but sometimes, in no more
than half a gale, they will admit being "bilgey in the stomach" if the
wind is northeast. I have thought this curious, but I have had it
demonstrated to my entire satisfaction. Hence even the fine points of
weather forecasting are important in this business.

There are all sorts of ways to prophesy the weather when you go
fishing. In Boston there was "Old Solitaire," a one-legged gull who
frequented the wharves for years, and whose presence always meant a
hard blow ahead. In Provincetown, when you see the gulls flying high
over the harbor, be ready for a bad blow within a matter of hours. And
if you look across the water, at the Truro shore, and the land looms
high, you have another sure sign of heavy weather.

Your rheumatism should warn you of an easterly; but if it is hazy and
a yeller-eyed sou'wester is in prospect, you may suffer no more than a
wetting through the neck of your oil jacket.

There are ways, too, of looking still further ahead. When the oysters
bed deep at Wellfleet, there will be a hard winter, and Provincetown
Harbor will fill up with pack ice in February - floes so wide there
won't be enough open water for a duck to light on, and so thick only
the flatfish can navigate below. But if a chicken's gizzard comes away
easily from the inner skin, look for an "open winter;" and if a school
of herring is raised in January, stow your overcoat for another year -
especially if the ducks start laying ahead of schedule and the willows
on the swamp banks bud too soon.

The seiners may have the best weather eye, but the trawlers tell the
weather with every bone in their bodies. For trawling is riskier. Any
doryman knows that.

One of the riskiest things about it is the "night set" or what is
known as "torch fishing." If the skipper's almanac shows slack tide in
the middle of the night, out they go in the middle of the night - be
it clear or black as a Frenchman's sail. They take along kerosene
flares, one to a dory; and like a glowing string of beads hung out
abaft the vessel, the line of dories stretches for miles across the
water. If the swell is heavy, they are taking chances - two men in a
tiny shell, out on the open ocean, getting miles away from the mother
ship, and even out of sight of the nearest dory. But this is their
job. The skipper who comes into Boston Fish Pier with a full hold, and
sells his trip at the Fish Exchange for a good price, is called a
"killer," and though he may drive his crew mercilessly, the "killer"
never has any trouble getting new hands.

If you know how to "pass a curse," you can get as much free fish as
you can eat. All you need do is go to the wharf in Provincetown and
ask for it. If the men refuse you, you "pass the curse" on them. Then,
the next time they go out, they will get no fish. But it's not quite
as simple as it sounds; for you must know the ancient ways of passing
curses - plain and fancy - and certainly no fisherman will teach you
those.

Provincetown once had a hundred trawling schooners in her fleet. At
this writing she has one such vessel left - the "Mary P. Goulart."
This schooner's masts were taller in the old days, carrying topsails;
and where her mainsail once strained at the sheet, she now has a
pilot-house, with the engine-room below. Like the Gloucestermen, she
carries foresail and trysail, but only to steady her, not to give her
headway.

In 1907, the schooner "Rose Dorothea" of the local fleet won the cup
offered by the late Sir Thomas Lipton in a fisherman's race off
Boston. Two weeks after the race, while Provincetown was still so
puffed with pride that her own beaches could scarcely hold her,
Theodore Roosevelt visited the town, and spoke before the fishermen in
the Odd Fellows lodgeroom.

"I would like to go out on the Banks," the then President said, "to
have a chance to talk with you." Three days after his return to
Washington Mr. Roosevelt received a letter from Captain Marion A.
PERRY, of the "Rose Dorothea."

"Speaking for myself and crew," he wrote, "we shall be glad to have
you with us; and we will do our best to make your stay on board ship a
profitable experience." But the President had a date to bust a trust.

Competition has driven out Provincetown's great Banks fleet. The fish
have become harder to find, partly because of the operation of the
"beam-trawlers" - great steam-driven vessels that go out of Boston
equipped to scrape everything from the shoals with their huge
mechanized dredges. They drag up their fish by the ton, taking the
baby cod and haddock along with the big fellows, and pulling up the
"shack" or bottom-stuff which provides the groundfish with their food.
They sort out the catch, heave over what they don't want, and race on
to take another sounding, leaving tons of dead small fry and tons of
potential food, floating worthlessly on the surface. The average
haul of these vessels is between 100,000 and 150,000 pounds, but
hauls have been made up to 357,000 pounds.

For a few days every summer the tuna come to Provincetown Harbor and
whole boatloads of them are sometimes brought in. Here they are called
the "horse-mackerel," and they are in fact a species of mackerel. They
weigh from 100 to 1,000 pounds. A trip in the trapboats is exciting
when the horse-mackerel are running. To watch one of the men "gaff" a
five hundred pounder over the gun'ls, with a quick heave, is worth
getting up at any time of night. The fishermen say if you get the
blood of the horse-mackerel in a cut, it will poison you. I tried
this, but perhaps my hands were too clean. They will tell you, too, of
the trapman who saw his great horse-mackerel slipping away from him,
stripped off his coat and jumped astraddle, riding the fish around
Provincetown harbor until, like a bronco-buster, he had him tamed,
then had a special saddle made for him and carried the mail 'cross-Bay
to Boston.


[more to come]
transcribed by and all errors attributed to
Bobbie Hall







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