Once in a while old leviathan himself stumbles into one of Cape Cod’s
fish traps. He’s usually a finback whale, valueless to present-day
fishermen, and just a nuisance. His great, threshing flukes threaten
death. The trap has to be partially dismantled so that the crew,
working at a safe distance, can shoo him out. Then follows a whole
day’s work of repairing the damage.
In Cape Cod waters there are more pole-traps, or weirs, than in any
other section of the Atlantic coast. Most of them are off Provincetown,
and part of the large profits they yield help enrich the town
government coffers. Long poles of tough hickory are shipped in from
Connecticut. Seventy of these are needed to drape the nets of a single
trap. First in the structure of a trap is the “leader”, a 900-foot
subterranean fence. This fence begins in shoal water and extends
offshore to the main body of the trap. When fish swim into it, they
do not turn inshore. As a rule they follow along the fence and swim
offshore.
Thus, the schools obligingly move into the mouth of the trap. From
there they go into the trap “heart”, which is the first stage of their
captivity, and thence into the “bowl”. Once inside the bowl the
baffled finny tribes are completely hoodwinked and rarely escape into
open water. Here they swim around and around until the trapping crew
pays the morning visit and the net is hauled up and pursed for the
bailers to go into action.
Commercial fishing in Cape Cod Bay provided the means for establishing
Massachusetts’ public school system. The Pilgrims appropriated the
profits to public uses. Portions of the fishery fund were allocated to
various towns. Barnstable, Cape Cod, being one of the beneficiaries in
1683.
When the Pilgrims went to King James to get his consent for the
Mayflower voyage to America, the King, according to Edward Winslow’s
narrative, inquired, “What profit might arise?” A single word was the
Pilgrims’ response: “Fishing.” James was satisfied: “So God have my
soul, ’tis an honest trade, ’twas the Apostle’s own calling.”