were made to set the gear, as the trawls are called.  The schooner got well to windward of the place where the set was to be made, and the first dory was lowered by a block and tackle.  One of the men jumped into it, and his partner handed him the tubs of gear and then jumped in himself.  The dory was made fast to the schooner by her painter as she drifted astern, and the other dories were put over in the same manner.  When all the dories were disposed of the first one was cast off.  One of the men rowed the boat before the wind while the other ran out the gear.  First, he threw over a keg for a buoy, which could be seen from some distance.  Fastened to the buoy-line at some sixty fathoms, or three hundred and sixty feet from the keg, was the trawl with a small anchor attached to sink it to the bottom.  When this was dropped overboard the trawl was rapidly run out, and as fast as the end of one was reached it was tied to the next one, thus making a line of trawl ten thousand eight hundred feet long, with eighteen hundred hooks attached.  After the schooner had sailed on a straight course a few hundred yards, the captain cast off the second dory, then along a little farther the third one, and so on till the five boats were all setting gear in parallel lines to each other.  When all set this gear practically represented a fishing line over ten miles long with nine thousand hooks tied to it.”

The trawls thus set were left out over night, the schooner picking up the dories and anchoring near the buoy of the first trawl.  At daybreak the work of hauling in was begun: 

“All the dories were made fast astern and left at the head of their respective trawls as the schooner sailed along.  One of the men in each dory, after pulling up the anchor, put the trawl in the roller—­a grooved wooden wheel eight inches in diameter.  This was fastened to one side of the dory.  The trawl was hauled in hand over hand, the heavy strain necessarily working the dory slowly along.  The fish were taken off as fast as they appeared.  A gaff—­a stick about the size and length of a broom handle with a large, sharp hook attached—­lay near at hand, and was frequently used in landing a fish over the side.  Occasionally a fish would free itself from the trawl hook as it reached the surface, but the fisherman, with remarkable dexterity, would grab the gaff, and hook the victim before it could swim out of reach.  What would be on the next hook was always an interesting uncertainty, for it seemed that all kinds of fish were represented.  Cod and haddock were, of course, numerous, but hake and pollock struggled on many a hook.  Besides these, there was the brim, a small, red fish, which is excellent fried; the cat fish, also a good pan fish; the cusk, which is best baked; the whiting, the eel, the repulsive-looking skate, the monk, of which it can almost be said that his mouth is bigger than himself, and last, but not least, that ubiquitous fish, the curse of