One of the first journal entries of Virginia’s original settlers had to do with the topic of fisheries. George Percy was aboard one of three sailing ships that entered Chesapeake bay on April 27, 1607. He wrote that “We came to a place where they [natives] had made a great fire, and had been newly a roasting Oysters When they perceived our coming, they fled away to the Mountains, and left many of the Oysters in the fire. We eat some of the Oysters, which were very large and delicate in taste.”[1] The following day he wrote, “Upon this plot of ground [Lynnhaven Bay] we got good store of Mussels and Oysters, which lay on the ground as thick as stone. We opened some, and found in many of them pearls.” Though Percy raved about what would later be named Ostrea Virginica, these mollusks would later be found inferior by colonials to the European mussel.
The availability of fish continued to impact on these first settlers’ psyche. On June 22, 1607, found in Virginia Council letters to the Council of Virginia in England: “We are set down 80 miles within a River [the James]… a deep and bold channel so stored with sturgeon and other sweet fish as no man’s fortune hath ever possessed the like…”[2] The sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrhynchus), among the largest fish to enter America’s fresh water, amazed and delighted the settlers of Jamestown whose later offspring would over-fish this native of Virginia to extinction. These early settlers were avid fishermen as Captain John Smith of Jamestown wrote, “…In the small rivers all the year, there is a good plenty of small fish, so that with hooks those that would take paines had sufficient.”[3] Smith would actually record the first natural history on colonial fisheries, whose seasonal abundance and various sizes of Virginian sturgeon have been verified by modern research.
Smith’s “A Map of Virginia…” London, 1612, detailed three sea mammals, seventeen fish, and two crustaceans, along with three mollusks. This proved to be the first detailed listing of fish inhabiting Chesapeake Bay. He wrote: “Of fish, we ae best acquainted with Sturgeon, Grampus, Porpus, Seales, Stingraies (whose tails are very dangerous), Bretters (Brit, a species of flounder), mullets, white Salmonds (spotted sea trout), Trowts (gray sea trout), Soles and Plaice (species of flounder), Herrings, Conyfish (possibly sheepshead), Rockfish, Eeles, Lampreyes, Catfish, Shades, Perch of three sorts, Crabs, and Muscles. But the most strange fish is a small one so like the picture of St. George his Dragon, as possible can be, except his legs and wings (sea-robin Prionotus), and the Todefish, which will swell till it be like to burst when it comes into the air…”
Medicinal Value
In 1614, Ralph Hamor added a few additional fish to Smith’s extensive list including in his ledger, “…Drummers, Jewfish, Crevises…” He commented on the vast quantity of fish in the bay writing “…if we had been furnished with salt, to have saved it [the fish they viewed], we might have taken as much fish as would have served us that whole year…” Over sixty years later, in 1676, Thomas Glover described the Sheepshead fish and the medicinal value to Hamor’s ‘Drummers’ fish, writing: “In the rivers are great plenty and variety of delicate fish; one kind…is called a Sheepshead, from resembling the eye of it bears with the eye of a sheep… There is another sort which the English call a Drum… this is likewise a very good fish, and there is a great plenty of them. In the head of this fish there is a jelly, which being taken out and dried in the sun, then beaten to powder and given in broth, procureth speedy delivery to women in labour.”[4]
Early Anglers
One of the earliest mention of the sport of angling came from Virginia. The Henrico County fisherman, Alexander Whitaker, wrote of the seasonal appearance of food fishes upon which the colonists were dependent.[5] “The rivers abound with fish both small and great: the sea fish come into our rivers in March and continue until the end of September…Herrings come in first, Shads of a great bigness, and the Rock-fish follow them. Trouts, Base, Flounders, and other dainty fish come in before the others be gone…then come multiples of Great Sturgeons…” He mentions one of the many irritants of all fishermen – debris in rivers and lakes writing “our channels are so foule in the bottom with great logs and trees, that we often break our nets upon them…” He gives a list of fresh water fish that he has caught with pole and hook: “…I have caught with mine angle, Pike, Carpe, Eele, Perches of six several kinds, Creafish, and the Torupe or little Turtle, besides many smaller kinds…”
Abundance of Fish & Methods of Catching
The Swiss traveler, Francis Louis Michel wrote of the large number of fish readily caught: “…an indescribably large number of big and little fish are found in the many creeks, as well as in the large rivers. The abundance is so great and they are so easily caught that I was surprised… Those who have a line can catch as many as they please… Most are caught with the hook or the spear…when I went out several times with the line, I could pull out one fish after another…”[6] He went on to speak of what became a southern mainstay, the catfish writing, “the so-called catfish is not unlike the large turbot. Also describing the eel as like what is found in Switzerland. He detailed the Pike, “They have a long and pointed mouth, with which they like to bite into the hook.” He went on to lament about the difficulties of catching pike, “…it happens rarely that one can keep them on the line, for they cut it in two with their sharp teeth.” So too he touched upon another common method of angling fish, “We always had our harpoons and guns with us when we went out fishing, and when the fish came near, we shot at them or harpooned them.” Lastly, he wrote of colonials pursuing the porpoise and the first to caution of eating oysters out of season, “A good fish, which is common and found in large numbers is the porpoise [a mammal]… The abundance of oysters is incredible. There are whole banks of them so that the ships much avoid them… they are four times as large [as in England]…I often cut them in two before I can put them in my mouth…In summer, they are not very good, but unhealthy and can cause fever.”
Spawning
Robert Beverly, in 1705, spoke of the large numbers of fish that traveled up rivers to spawn.[7] “In the spring of the year, Herrings come up in such abundance into their brooks and foards [fjord] to spawn, that it is almost impossible to ride through, without treading on them…thence it is, that at this time of the year…the rivers…stink of fish.” He describes other fish and their duration in the rivers, “…likewise into the freshes from the sea, multitudes of shads, rocks, sturgeon, and some few lampreys, which fasten themselves to the Shad…They continue their stay there about three months… The shads at their first coming up, are fat and fleshy, but they waste so extremely in milting and spawning, that at their going down, they are poor, and seem fuller of bones…” He also spoke of ‘the Old-Wife (Pomlobus): “…kinds s of fish in infinite shoals, such as the Old-Wife, a fish not much unlike a herring, and the Sheep’s Head, a sort of fish, which they esteem in the number of their best. So too he named, “Taylors, Green-fish (Pomatomus), Sun-fish, bass, Chub, Place, Whitings, Fatbacks (Brevoortia), Maids, Wives, Needle-fish (Tylosurus), Carp, and Jack (species of Pike).
Economic Value of Fish
French traveler Moreau de St. Mery[8], wrote in 1794 as to how cheap fish could be found at the market: “Fish is the commodity that sells for a ridiculously low price… One can purchase weakfish (Cynoscion) weighing more than twenty pounds for 4 or 5 francs and sometimes one that weights 3 times more for a gourde, 5 francs, 10 sous; drum is also very cheap. Sturgeon weighing up to 60 pounds can be bought for 6 French sons a pound…same price for codfish that are brought in alive and are delicious to eat…” He wrote as to the vast number of fish, “…In short, so abundant…that sometimes …find it necessary to throw back into the water those that are not bought.” So too, Andrew Burnaby,[9] in 1759, was amazed by the number of fish caught in the Chesapeake writing, “These waters are stored with incredible quantities of fish…one day, within the space of two miles only, some gentlemen in canoes, caught above 600 of the former (Sturgeon) with hooks, which they let down to the bottom, and drew up at a venture when they perceived them to rub against a fish; and of the later, (Shad), above 5,000 have been caught at one single haul of the seine [a fishing net which hangs vertically in the water with floats at the top and weights at the bottom edge, the ends being drawn together to encircle the fish].”
Additional Angling Techniques, Poles, and Lures
Angling methods included fish traps or weirs [an enclosure of stakes set in a stream to trap fish]. One of the more common practices inherited from Native Americans was using bamboo like grass (Arundinaria) to funnel fish into small spaces where they could be speared or shot. Fishing poles made from willow or cane, often with softwoods like pine for the midsection, were strung with lines of woven horsehair. Besides live bait, then as now, lures were used, constructed of wood and stained multiple colors to mimic crawdads or minnows. Fly lures were used extensively throughout the colonial period. This practice dated back to the 15th century where threads tied feathers at the end of lines to lure fish to hooks. Hooks were fashioned from period sewing needles, using heat and small anvils to bend and shape the slender metals. Unlike modern needles, there was no eye to thread the line through. The needle had to be edged to wrap and tire braided horse-hair leaders to the flies. The short fly leaders were then connected, loop to loop, to the longer horsehair leader attached to the fishing pole.
Unlike modern fishing techniques, there was no casting of lines. An angler’s fishing pole was often twenty or more feet long. A typical fishing pole would have the butt end of ash, the midsection from hickory, and the tip from willow. These ‘carriage rods’ came apart with light metal ferrules between sections. The fisherman would stretch his long pole over his favorite fishing spot and then dip the line onto the water. According to 17th century angular, Isaak Walton, who wrote over 350 years ago, “Let no part of your line touch the water, but your fly only.” So too caution was taken when fishing from a boat. Flat-bottom craft were highly preferred over canoes which were unreliable when hauling in angled fish or netting. The technique was the same for angling; long poles were dangled over the side of the boat, lowering the baited hook or lure onto or into the water.
Sports Fishing Clubs
The vast openness and many rivers and streams provided excellent opportunities for fishing and hunting, which were not only sources of food. In 1732, the Schuylkill Fishing Company, a private club for fishermen, drew up rules for fishing. The sport of fishing had become popularized in England in the seventeenth century with a publication of Isaak Walton’s Compleat Angler. Other fishing clubs were formed throughout the colonies. The society of Fort St. David, another Pennsylvania fishing club, also housed a museum of native American artifacts and curiosities. In 1776, Pennsylvania’s new state constitution guaranteed citizens the right to “fowl and hunt” on all open land, and to fish “in all boatable waters,” providing a liberty restricted in England by the feudal privileges of aristocrats.[10]
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RESOURCES
Oxford and Columbia University Press. Encyclopedia.com. 1754-1783: Sports and Recreation: Overview.
Pearson, John C. “The Fish and Fisheries of Colonial Virginia.” William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine. Vol. 22, Series 2, No. 3 (July 1942) pp 213 – 220.
Reinard, Ken. How the Founding Fathers Fished. Web article, July 1, 2019.
Reinard, Ken. The Colonial Angler’s Manual of Fly Fishing and Flytying. 2007: Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA.
Senior, William. Near and far : an angler’s sketches of home sport and colonial life. 1890: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, London, UK.
Walton, Isaak & Cotton, Charles. The Complete Angler. 1859 Reprint of 17th Century Publication: Routledge Warnes & Routledge, London, UK, Download free on American Archives.
Wharton, James. The Bounty of the Chesapeake: Fishing in Colonial Virginia. 1957 & 2010: FQ Books through Amazon or download free with Gutenberg.
[1] Pearson, pg. 214.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid., pg. 215.
[4] “An Account of Virginia found in the Philosophical transactions, Vol. X, No., 126, London, 1676.
[5] From Whitaker’s “Good News from Virginia”, London, 1613. This can be found reprinted by Alexander Brown’s “The Genesis of the United States, Vol. 2, Boston, 1891, pg. 586.
[6] From “Report of the Journey… from berne, Switzerland to Virginia, Oct., 2, 1701 – Decl, 1, 1702. Edited by Wm. J. Hinke in The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. Vvol XXIV, Richmond, 1916, pg. 34.
[7] The History and Present State of Virginia, Robert Beverley, 1706, London.
[8] Pearson, pg. 219.
[9] Burnaby, Andrew. Traveling through the Middle Settlements in North America in the years 1759-1760, London, 1798, pg. 13.
[10] 1754-1783: Sports and Recreation: Overview, Oxford University Press online.