ays of warm
south wind the latter part of April will soon blow them up; it is
true also, that a cold north wind will as quickly blow them back.
Preparations have been making for them all winter. In many a
farm-house or other humble dwelling along the river, the ancient
occupation of knitting of fish-nets has been plied through the long
winter evenings, perhaps every grown member of the household, the
mother and her daughters as well as the father and his sons, lending
a hand. The ordinary gill or drift-net used for shad fishing in the
Hudson is from a half to three-quarters of a mile long, and thirty
feet wide, containing about fifty or sixty pounds of fine linen twine,
and it is a labor of many months to knit one. Formerly the fish were
taken mainly by immense seines, hauled by a large number of men; but
now all the deeper part of the river is fished with the long, delicate
gill-nets that drift to and fro with the tide, and are managed by two
men in a boat. The net is of fine linen thread, and is practically
invisible to the shad in the obscure river current: it hangs suspended
perpendicularly in the water, kept in position by buoys at the top and
by weights at the bottom; the buoys are attached by cords twelve or
fifteen feet long, which allow the net to sink out of the reach of
the keels of passing vessels. The net is thrown out on the ebb tide,
stretching nearly across the river, and drifts down and then back on
the flood, the fish being snared behind the gills in their efforts to
pass through the meshes. I envy fishermen their intimate acquaintance
with the river. They know it by night as well as by day, and learn all
its moods and phases. The net is a delicate instrument that reveals
all the hidden currents and by-ways, as well as all the sunken snags
and wrecks at the bottom. By day the fisherman notes the shape and
position of his net by means of the line or buoys; by night he marks
the far end of it with a lantern fastened upon a board or block. The
night tides he finds differ from the day--the flood at night being
much stronger than at other times, as if some pressure had been
removed with the sun, and the freed currents found less hindrance. The
fishermen have terms and phrases of their own. The wooden tray upon
which the net is coiled, and which sits in the stern of the boat, is
called a 'cuddy.' The net is divided into 'shots.' If a passing sloop
or schooner catches it with her centre-board or her anchor, it