by Edward Ellis, Special Correspondent
Archived New Bern newspapers of the 1800s are crammed with mind-boggling, eye-popping tales of hauls of fish from the Neuse and Trent rivers … stories that sound more like liar’s yarns than anything based in reality.
Take the report of one Mr. Parish, quoted in the New Berne Times in May of 1873 who caught 199 shad in the Trent River on one haul of his net. Or F.B. Lane who reported to the Raleigh Farmer and Mechanic of catching 212 perch there in five hours and 26 bass in three hours more. Or B.B. Mallison of Croatan witnessing 200 pounds of trout and bluefish landed in one hour of fishing the Neuse.
These aren’t rare reports but show up week after week, year in and year out: “Thirty-two bass in one evening” and “101 perch in 30 minutes” and “twenty-five to thirty pounds in a couple of hours.” The New Berne Times, March 16, 1872: Mr. Charles Davis using a seine net on the Neuse, “His first haul was 8,000 herring and 37 shad.”
The New York Sun listed large and smallmouth bass, striped bass, blue and yellow catfish, yellow and white perch, crappies, mullet, redhorse, sunfish, white and hickory shad, herring, drum, roach, weakfish, pickerel, and garfish as typical catches on the Trent and Neuse. The 1896 story said that people along the Trent River “stand with long-handled dip nets and scoop the fish as they ascend, sometimes a half dozen or more at the time.” And “the fish business of New Bern occupies many big shippers. Vessels … are constantly arriving with fish and oysters, and the market slip at the foot of Middle Street is usually crowded with the craft.”
Capt. Ben Barker’s single December 1892 haul couldn’t be handled by his two boats and three crews. He had to hire four sailboats to help bring in his “10,000 to 12,000 speckled and salmon trout” for which he was paid the modern equivalent of more than $16,000.
And as a curiosity, we mention the remarkable, rare, and beautiful silver eel caught on the Neuse River in 1871. Like the one shown here, it was three feet long, bright silver in color, with teeth a quarter of an inch long. It was soon in the hands of a North Carolina scientist for study.
