The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail

413 Pages·2012·2.78 MB·English

by  W. Jeffrey Bolster

T H E
M S
O RTA L E A
F I S H I N G T H E AT L A N T I C
I N T H E AG E O F SA I L
W. J B
EFFREY OLSTER
The Mortal Sea

T H E
M S
O RTA L E A
FISHING THE ATLANTIC
IN THE AGE OF SAIL
W. JEFFREY BOLSTER
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, En gland 2012
Copyright © 2012 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Bolster, W. Jeff rey
The mortal sea : fi shing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail / W. Jeff rey Bolster.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978- 0- 674- 04765- 5 (alk. paper)
1. Fisheries— North Atlantic Ocean— History. 2. Fishers— North
Atlantic Ocean— History. 3. Atlantic Coast (New England)— History.
4. Atlantic Coast (Canada)— History. I. Title. II. Title: Fishing
the Atlantic in the Age of Sail.
SH213.5.B65 2012
639.209163'1—dc23 2012010747
To Sally and Bill Bolster
Accomplished boaters and dedicated community activists
Sticklers for good grammar
Companions who always enjoyed a drink and the company of friends
Longtime New En glanders transplanted south
Loving parents and grandparents
Thanks.

C O N T E N T S
Preface ix
Prologue: The Historic Ocean 1
1 Depleted Eu ro pe an Seas and the
Discovery of America 12
2 Plucking the Low- Hanging Fruit 49
3 The Sea Serpent and the Mackerel Jig 88
4 Making the Case for Caution 121
5 Waves in a Troubled Sea 169
6 An Avalanche of Cheap Fish 223
Epilogue: Changes in the Sea 265
Appendix: Figures 285
Notes 291
Glossary 335
Ac know ledg ments 357
Index 361

P R E F A C E
I’m not a fi sherman, though I know something of the craft and the sea after
thousands of days and nights underway in the North Atlantic. For years I sa-
vored the thrill of the hunt and the kill, and fed off the anticipation that always
accompanied hauling back, when we never really knew what was on the end of
the line. My fi rst fi sh was a tautog, a “blackfi sh” as Dad called it, landed around
1960 from his skiff , the Irish Rover, in Connecticut’s Norwalk Islands. Floun-
der followed, and eels, and snapper blues in my youth. Later my old shipmate
and fi shing master, Doug Hardy, had us jigging squid in Maine’s Muscongus
Bay, gill-n etting spiny dogfi sh in Delaware Bay, and trolling the slippery edges
of the Gulf Stream. During the late 1970s I jigged on Brown’s Bank one nota-
ble summer day until we were knee- deep in cod, arms numb from landing fi sh
on three-p ound stainless-s teel jigs that w ere lethal, even without bait, in the
mysterious crosscurrents below.
Back then, before I understood the plight of the living ocean—o r knew that
thoughtful fi shermen from generations past had realized they were hitting
it too hard— I enthusiastically long- lined swordfi sh on the northeast peak of
Georges Bank, east of Cape Cod. As skipper aboard the schooner Harvey
Gamage, during the 1980s, I once fi shed fi fty miles seaward of Cape Hatteras
in a run of tuna that would not stop hitting yellow-f eather lures despite an inten-
sifying fall gale; and as mate aboard R/V Westward tagged sharks one summer,
for scientists, in the North Atlantic fog. Throughout the years, I’ve continued
to talk fi sh with high-l iners in Brigus, Newfoundland; Lunenburg, Nova Scotia;
Boothbay, Maine; and Gloucester, Massachusetts. But I’ll never be in the inner
circle. I don’t think like a fi sh. And my satisfaction at watching noble animals
such as sharks and blue marlin shake the hook and fl ee lingers still. One