Tons of Fish Tons of Work

Tons of Fish Tons of Work. . , Ideal for Fishing , Flag Ponds is distinctive from the rest of Calvert County's Chesapeake shore because of the absence of high cliffs. From 1915-58, this low, flat beach and its protected harbor were an ideal camp for harvesting fishes from the bay's shallow waters. Here a colony of pound-net fishermen mended, maintained, and stored their nets; they cut and hauled the pound-net poles from the forest; and they repaired their many boats on Flag Pond's beach., None of the boats they used survived. Even the sturdy fish lighter, the deep, wide, flat-bottomed boats used while emptying the nets, exist no more, being useless after the end of the pound-net fishery in the late 1950s., A fishing captain typically owned several pound-nets hired a crew of six or seven strong men to set, monitor, and haul fishes from the shallow waters. They boxed most of the fishes harvested from the pound-nets, iced, and trucked them to Baltimore fish markets. By 1955, however, fish populations were declining and the costs of gear and labor rose to the point where many fishermen gave up their pound-netting operations., Fish Trapping , Pound-nets were brought to Maryland from New Jersey in 1858. While there are many variations of these stationary fishing nets, they are basically arrangements of heavy-gauge netting supported on poles that form a trap or a "pound." Fishes swimming along the shore are funneled toward the pound-net and trapped, where they remain until removed by fishermen., Similar pound-net fishing stations existed along Calvert County at Cove Point, Drum Point and Solomons Island., The crew fished the pound-nets daily at a slack tide by: , 🐟 first gliding their boat inside the pound head , 🐟 then working as a team to lift the heavy netting floor , 🐟 this brought the trapped fish to the surface , 🐟 and by using dip nets, the crew scooped the fish into their boat., [Captions:] , Above Left: A crew lifts the heavy net, bringing fish to the surface. Because pound-nets were navigational hazards, the cedar bush (visible on the right pole) marked the net by day, while a lantern marked its location by night. , Above Right: A wide variety of fishes were dip-netted from the pound-net into wooden shipping boxes on board the boats., A Home Away from Home , The building to your right, dubbed the "Buoy Hotel" by the fishermen, served as their home away from home during the fishing season. Since many of the fishermen were from Eastern Shore, they could not travel between Flag Ponds and home each day. So they cooked, ate, and slept in simple shanties like the "Buoy Hotel" from February through November. Typically six fishermen lived in a shanty this size. Of the three shanties existing at Flag Ponds in 1950, only the "Buoy Hotel" remains. Built in the early 1920's, it was occupied by Captain Todd and his crew until 1954. The Higgins Brothers then used the building while they fished until 1958., [Captions:] , The splendid "Buoy Hotel," as it looked ca. 1936. The 35-65 foot wooden poles, shown in the foreground, supported the pound nets. Up to 130 poles were required for a single net., Four seasonal residents of the "Buoy Hotel" ca. 1944. , Left to right: Henry Duncan, Ira Todd, Russell Duncan, Clifford Gibson.