A correspondent of the Dodge County Gazette, writing from Horicon, Wisconsin, gives the following account of the fish operations carried on at that place:
“It is now about seventy days since they first began to take fish at this place, and almost ever since, they have taken from one to eight and ten tons per day, of Pickerel, weighing from two to twenty three pounds each. There have been, some days, fifty or sixty persons spearing, loading, and drawing away. Above the village, and along the lake shore for a few miles, I am told there are from thirty to forty tents on the ice, where people are taking fish from holes cut in the ice, all the time- some taking as high as two tons per day. It is estimated that at least twice as much has been taken here as at the dam, which would swell the above amount to over four hundred tons of Pickerel taken at or near the vicinity of Horicon. The fish have sold at from $10 to $30 per ton, on the ground, and as high as $6 per cwt., taken away. And the half is not yet told. There have been taken also, from the same place, loads and loads of bull-heads. Our farmers for miles around have drawn tons of them home for their swine. For days in succession, ten, fifteen and even twenty tons of this kind of fish have been taken. I have seen the water, for rods around, literally black with these bull-heads, and a man in a boat, dipping up at least one bushel per minute. I have seen more than three-hundred spear men all busily employed, some taking up at least 500 pounds in an hour.
And during the seventy days already past, it is a low estimate to say that five tons a day have been taken-making three hundred and fifty tons of bull-heads-and yet the water is alive with them. But I will cease, for I fear my statement will be pronounced a “fish story” by some who have not been on the ground, and a regular lie by those who live at a distance. But I am quite sure that I have made too low an estimate than too high. I could hardly believe, before I saw it with my own eyes, that you could dip up these bull-heads by the basket full, as many as one can lift out of the water at a time, but it is so.
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