Hauling seines at New Bedford

April 9. 

Thursday. A. M. — To the cove south of the town. 

April 9, 2017

See them haul two seines. They caught chiefly alewives, from sixty to a hundred at a haul, seine twelve to fifteen feet wide. There were also caught with the alewives, skates, two or three “ drums ” (like flatfish, only the mouth twisted the other way and not good), flatfish, smelts, sculpins, five-fingers, and a lobster with red claws. This was what the seine would catch in making a large circuit. It seemed to be pretty hard work hauling it in, employing two or three men or boys at each end. A fisherman said that they caught the first alewife the 28th of March there. 

Picked up many handsome scallop shells beyond the ice-houses, with wormy-shaped parasites on them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  April 9, 1857

They caught chiefly alewives, from sixty to a hundred at a haul. A fisherman said that they caught the first alewife the 28th of March there. See April 11, 1857 ("This man told me that the smelt had been running up about one month and were now about done. The herring had been seen for a fortnight. They will run this month and all the next. . . . Shad have not been caught yet.")