Six Methods for Catching Fish
Copyright © 1998Method One:
The most likely use of the weir was to catch fish in the"V" by dragging a net through the water from about a half mile above the weir,and then tieing the net off to the banks of the river. The fish would be trapped, as the sluice would have been closed with a "gate" which was constructed of small branches. The trapped fish would be speared,and thrown onto the bank where they would be cleaned, cooked, and preserved.
(Cross 1958:3)
Method Two:
The second method involved placing a basket behind the sluice at night. Eels would swim through the sluice and be trapped in the basket where they would be harvested in the morning.
(Zeisberger 1910:38)
Method Three:
During the migration of the salmon, shad and striped bass, the aborigines would close the upper part of the weir and then beginning downstream, beat the surface of the water thereby driving the fish towards the apex. When the fish were in between the two parts, a gate probably constructed out of weighted nets, was closed. Then the harvesting began.
(Rogers 1960:12)
Method Four:
After fashioning a net, and placing it at weir's apex, the aborigines would commence beating the water upstream and begin walking downstream, thereby trapping the fish between themselves and the apex.
(Heusser 1923:25-26)
Method Five:
In the spring, the shad would swim up fresh water steams and rivers to spawn. Swimming upstream, they would rise to the surface in order to pass over the weir and come within range of the aborigines waiting with their spears.
(Deyoe 1952)
Method Six:
When the Shad-fish (clupea alosa) come up the rivers, the Indians run a dam of stones across the stream, where its depth will admit of it, not in a straight line, but in two parts, verging towards each other in an angle. An opening is left in the middle for the water to run off. At this opening they place a large box, the bottom of which is full of holes. They then make a rope of twigs of the wild vine, reaching across the stream, upon which boughs of about six feet in length are fastened at the distance of about two fathoms [12 feet] from each other. A party is detached about a mile above the dam with this rope and its appendages, who begin to move gently down the current, some guiding one, some on the opposite end, whilst others keep the branches from sinking by supporting the rope in the middle with wooden forks. Thus they proceed, frightening the fishes into the opening left in the middle of the dam, where a number of?Indians are placed on each side, who, standing upon the legs of the angles, drive the fishes with poles, and an hideous noise, through the opening into the above-mentioned box or chest. Here they lie, the water running off through the holes in the bottom, and other Indians stationed on each side of the chest, take them out, kill them and fill their canoes. By this contrivance they sometimes catch above a thousand shad and other fish in half a day.(Loskiel 1794, Part I:94)
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