CAPF MAY COUNTY MAGAZINE 1 JUNE '83

23

fxwl, nnd whatever kind of food he wants to get otit of the water It's a great combination... I: Was Cape May always considered a fishing port? S: They had to work through a small channel before Cape May Harbor was dug There was a small stream entrance there, and according to weather conditions, they could get into and out of the ocean So. they had a commercial interest even before the Cape May Harbor was dug I: Around whnt time Mas that'? S: I expect the digging of ('ape May liar bor must have occurred in the very early nineteen hundreds I m not sure just what year, but it was there when they put the jetty in l:...l've seen pictures of the cathoat working up in the marsh> area, and I just wondered if you handled an>«of those? S: Well, the calboat is an old-fashioned rig It's not as fast as today's marconie rigs It’s really not as powerful a sailing rig as some of the designs we have today.

wouldn't win a sailboat race, but they don I care. They need a source of power, nnd that certainly has got some promises 1: How about rail lines. Was there much shipping of fish out of Cape May to Philadelphia? S: The biggest fish shipment nut of Cape May, that I recall, war the markerel catch in the spring The rail train that came in to pick up barrels upon barrels of markerel was so long that it would leave one set of cars at the fish dock and would hove to break the train at the highway Then the remaining line of cars would extend way out into the marsh where the track crossed the marsh I: How did they catch the mackerel? What was the method they used? S: Well, it was a nighttime run because they could find the fish on the ocean at night Mackerel are a surface fish for the most part, and they will create a glbw in the water A phosphorescent glow will appear at night A phosphorescent glow will appear at night, and the mackerel boats

The old boats did get heavy...

But the, oyster industry certainly harvested with sail power, and for a long time it was one way of keeping the water clean There are no oil and pollutants of that type released on the oyster beds It was a free source of energy, and today that would be most appreciated by commercial fishermen because the cost of fuel is ex ecssive and anything that would get them to the fishing grounds for free would be, even at a slower pace, certainly an economical venture On the West Coast there are some commercial fishermen that are trying sail power at least to gel them to the fishing grounds, and then they’ll use their powerplants to do their fishing they save a lot of money that way The sails are not necessarily the type that arc handled by men on boards They don't need to increase the number of people on board, because they have push button sailing rigs, and you push a button and the sail disappears inside of the mast, and when you want it, it come«! out So it’s a very simple kind of sail handling It

will have lookouts watching for these fish When they spot one. they will move in with a big boat, and then drop a hull seine around the school and just net them in a net, whole schools at a time I: I’ve heard recently that with the tcallop industry we had. I think at the peak of the year...70 or K0 boats...landing at the Lobster House-Cold Spring dock. Why do we have so many boats coming in here, because the resource isn’t right off Cape May? It’s further up. S: One of the main reasons was our inlet You see. this one of the best inlets on the East Coast, and these commercial fishermen coming in. under all weather conditions and all hours of the night, want a good inlet and there aren't many You could never use Barnegat and Hereford In lets with these boats, but Cape May there is some chance of getting inout of a storm I think that’s a key point in Cape May's success in commercial fishing, the inlet

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