CA« MAV COUNTY MAGAZINE 23 MAY 'M

26 ,

Our Roots Started About 1919

ED l^OTE Following U excerpted from an interview wifh Warren Lund, prealdent of Uind'mgherlea. Lower Townahip It la une of a aerih-conducted by Dr. Tfromaa Chellus of Atlantic Community College and Cape May County marine agent Stewart Tweed an research/or a profile on the coiinty'a commercial fiahing industry. One of a series INTKRVIKWEH: I guess the best way to start this is to let you dr scribe, in your own words, something about the history of your family and how your family first came to Cape May. LEND. Well, my father started in the fishing industry when he was 23 or 22 years old, and he'wall fishing here in this area along the bay shore mainly, with small boats That would have been 1919. He was filling along the bay shore with nets, gill nets, catching mostly weakfish and shad in the spring So that’s were our roots first started, about-1919 I : Do you remember any of the sizes of the nets they were using; were they different’’ L: They were not nylon or poly I’d say they were strictly linen at that time, and I think they used different sjzed nets Gosh, I don’t recall, but 1 do remember him remarking about tht* prices that they got for fish way back then. It was surprising compared to whal.it is today. I recall they got as much as $30, $35^$40 a barrel, 150- to 200-pound barrel. Now this is 50 60 years

ago. Of course, this is almost comparable to what we get today, shocking as it may be. I: Was he fishing out of Cape May? L: No, at that early time he was fishing up towards the Maurice River area, the cove in Port -Norris. He fished there with gill nets because at that time there was no dragging. He moved down here to the Cape May area and started dragging around 1926, and he had probably the first draggers in this area. The first boat that I recall he had was named after my brother, and that was a 46-foot boat and that was the latest thing in dragging at that time for inshore fishing. I-. Was that boat built for dragging? L: Yes, that was the first boat, to my knowledge, that was built along this area for dragging other than some of the Gloucester Boston area boats. That was a 46-foot and 50, 75 horse power It was the first to come out with a gasoline engine, but then after he had it about 10 years he put in a diesel which was quite something I recall that boat had a compass and a that was about it. Of course, there Was a lead line, no barometer and the ranges arc of locations ... Let me explain that Range could be a telephone pole lined up on a tree or Church steeple Many time I heard him talk aboul the church steeples that they can pick up and they would line up ranges, and that’s where they fished and when they found a wreck or a snag of some kind

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they would have ranges on it. He would make ranges, and he would know exactly where he was, strictly on ranges. Now as far as the depths he had a lead line which was nothing more than a one or two-pound lead with a hollowed out bottom, and they would put Pels Naptha Soap, that was a little softer than the others, on the bottom of the lead line. And of course, constantly they would be throwing this ahead of the boat and then he would haul it right back and he would know two things, the depth of the water and what type of bot tom it was, because he would look at the soap on the bottom. If it was mud it would show on the soap. If it was sand, he would know it, and that was the fishing gear they had. ' I: How far off shore did he work? Something like that the visibility must hinder. L: Yeah, normally within 3,4,5,6 miles. I still think that I can see ranges of 7 and 8 miles. I:'WouM he go out in the morning and come back at dusk? L: Out every morning before daylight, and back at dusk. I: What were they catching at that time? L: Flounders at that time. I say flounders, I’m talking about what we call fluke today. They didn’t catch a lot of round fish in the nets, there wasn't much power in the boats, and the nets were not sophisticated, so mostly flounder I: Where did they get their nets’’ Did they build their own nets’’ L: Well, yeah, you could but twine or the netting. They never bought a complete set of nets like we do now. I never remember him buying that type of net I was just netting itself and he would cut it out and sew it together, different twine in different areas of the net ... I: How big a net was this’’ L: Gosh. I don’t recall, but it was nothing like we have today. It comes to my mind that a sweep line was 50 foot or something like that. Of course, today all of them are a hundred or better but I would say 30, 40, 50 foot sweep line on the nets and a few floats, not too many floats, just two or three floats on the net. They were small, small nets. I: How did they handle the fish that were caught? Did they carry ice? ' L: Oh yes, they carried ice. In fact, flounder fishing or fluke fishing, they’d take the fish and always put them down in

WARREN LEND radios, and if they did call in, it would be all she wrote. So the submarines left them alone because they knew they weren’t going to call in. But when they would come in at night they would report to the Coast Guard what they had seen. But to get on the radio and report seeing a submarine off the Jersey coast didn't even make good sense. I: When he came in. where did he sell his fish? I: Well, it’s what is now called Spring Dock It was Schellenger’s at that time, Clarence Schellenger and Co., which was owned by the railroad. That’s where they sold fish about that time, and when I'm saying about that time I would say^in the 30's. Now there was a lot of fish produced here. We put them in when I was in grade school in the 30’s. We would send out box cars of fish, not trucks as much as box care, and we would load box car after box car, and they would go to the Philadelphia market or New York market, or even Boston market by train. I: When did you end up in'this area? Did

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the ice hole, putting them white side up. They never heard of just dumping them down. ... By the way, they were always sorted out and put down in the hole white side up so they wo\dd not change color. Fluke, if you put them white side down, will take the color of whatever you put below him, but if you put him white side up, he’ll remain white. It made them very proud of their catch. They were always very proud of their quality. If the quality wasn’t right it made them very dissatisfied and they took a lot of effort in keeping good quality fish ... I: DitWie get involved in any fish finders or anything like that? L: Only in the very last few years did they get into fish finders, hut not too much. He didn't have any radios on the boat except during World War II when the government gave them radios to put on the boats in case they saw some range water where they could call in, but they didn't really use the radios at that time. ... He told us about the submarines he used to see during World War II, but he was afraid to call in because, of course, the submarines had

Lund Fisheries come right to this area? L: No, my brother and I started them about 1945, I think ... I: Were you involved in the business as a boy? L: Well, yes like most boys in Cape May County. Even today we still have high school boys here all the time working every evening. I did it too when I was in high school, working at the docks nights, Saturday of course. Not that I wanted to, but we had to work to survive. I: This was in soring and packing? L: Packing and during the winter months the codfish gear had to be baited so they would bring the gear in and bait it and someone had to spend hours and hours opening clams and baiting the codfish gear so that the firh might be caught the next morning. That was our main fishing in the early days, codfishing in the winter months. It was a tough life. I: They didn’t use the net for codfish? L: No, the dragging with nets was pretty much in the summer, which was the fluke. Then sometime in the early winter they would start with codfish gear ...

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