Catching Menhaden with a Purse Seine

This description of the process of catching menhaden early in the 20th century when the chanteys were still in use is drawn from The Men All Singing: The Story of Menhaden Fishing by John Frye.

From the crowsnest of the fishboat – perhaps an older wooden ship, 120 feet long, bought from the military after World War I and converted from steam to diesel – the captain, mate and striker searched the horizon for "whips," tell-tale ripples made by a school of menhaden swimming near the surface. With the cry from the crowsnest "Fish! Get ready below boys!" the mate and striker rushed down the ratlines, the mate to lower the purse boats, the striker to set out in his drive boat. They lowered the port and starboard purse boats down from the davits into the water and sixteen to twenty men jumped into each boat, manning the five heavy sixteen-foot oars. The captain stayed aloft, watching the fish and watching the striker.

Once the striker located the school of fish, the captain rushed to board the starboard purse boat and the two boats cast off, lashed together with a coupling line. The mate's boat and the captain's boat then pushed apart and rowed toward the striker, who directed them as he watched the school, sometimes herding the fish by striking the water with his oar. As they rowed, they paid out the long straight net, or purse seine, over the stern while the men rowed and the captain or mate steered with oar or tiller. If everyone had done their job, the fish were herded into the completed circle, and the biggest and strongest man dropped the heavy "tom" overboard, a weight with two ropes attached, closing the bottom of the net to form a "purse."

Then the work began. The boats were cleared of oars, attached by lanyards to prevent them from drifting away, and the buntpullers began pulling up the fathoms of loose net until the fish were bunched together. Finally the large boat came alongside the two purse boats and the heavy labor of raising the fish began. At first the net came up yard by yard, then it became taut, the work harder and harder. With light sets of ten, twenty or fifty thousand fish, there were would be no singing. The men could "harden" the net with little exertion and sometimes little interest since a light set meant little money to take home.

But when a heavy set came, two hundred thousand fish or more, "inspiration," says Frye, "came to the chanteyman. The drama and sweetness of the verses were heightened by the preceding and between-verse noisy, obscene chatter. They scolded each other for not pulling their weight or crowding." Using the chanteys and every ounce of their strength, the men pulled the fish to the surface, where dipnets scooped them into the hold of the mother ship to be transported back to port and sold.

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