Bait back in the day...
We kept our barrels of salted sardines, anchovies and slab bonito out in back of the store. From the barrels we filled aluminum tubs kept in the front of the store from which handful sales were made. Sardines and anchovies were 15¢ a pound, mussels 5¢ a pound, razor clams 20¢ a pound, bonito 20¢ a pound and soft-shell sand crabs 15¢ a dozen. Running along the beach at low tide, we kids picked up the sand crabs, which we wholesaled to my Dad for 10¢ a dozen. We were paid 10¢ a pound for all the razor clams we could dig up on the mud flats. We could dig about 12 to 15 pounds a kid on a low tide. We had 50-pound sacks of salt, which we used to salt-down the fish boxes of sardines and anchovies, brought in by bait boat crews. Salting down the little fish in our several barrels was a weekly job as we really went through them.
My older half-brother, Tate, and I had the job of chopping mussels off the piling of the Newport Pier...About all we knew was to get in and start rowing like mad and you would get out through the surf...We would fill two or three potato sacks with mussels. I’d sit in the stern with the mussels. We’d have about six inches of freeboard at the stern and the waves were three or four feet or higher as a rule. I was half wet by the time we started in anyway, so, it didn’t matter much if we practically sank getting back in, as long as we saved the mussels...Going under the pier with the dory with a big surf running, was a thrill. One moment the mussels on the pilings would be above your head, dripping salt water. The next moment they would be under four or five feet of water as the dory went up over a ground swell. Trying to stand up in the pitching dory and taking swipes at the mussels with the shovel, as the dory shot up and then dropped down was an exciting situation. It was always nice to finish getting enough mussels and row from between the piling, out of the shadows into the warm sunlight.—Hugh R. McMillan, Beach Rat Days
We kept our barrels of salted sardines, anchovies and slab bonito out in back of the store. From the barrels we filled aluminum tubs kept in the front of the store from which handful sales were made. Sardines and anchovies were 15¢ a pound, mussels 5¢ a pound, razor clams 20¢ a pound, bonito 20¢ a pound and soft-shell sand crabs 15¢ a dozen. Running along the beach at low tide, we kids picked up the sand crabs, which we wholesaled to my Dad for 10¢ a dozen. We were paid 10¢ a pound for all the razor clams we could dig up on the mud flats. We could dig about 12 to 15 pounds a kid on a low tide. We had 50-pound sacks of salt, which we used to salt-down the fish boxes of sardines and anchovies, brought in by bait boat crews. Salting down the little fish in our several barrels was a weekly job as we really went through them.
My older half-brother, Tate, and I had the job of chopping mussels off the piling of the Newport Pier...About all we knew was to get in and start rowing like mad and you would get out through the surf...We would fill two or three potato sacks with mussels. I’d sit in the stern with the mussels. We’d have about six inches of freeboard at the stern and the waves were three or four feet or higher as a rule. I was half wet by the time we started in anyway, so, it didn’t matter much if we practically sank getting back in, as long as we saved the mussels...Going under the pier with the dory with a big surf running, was a thrill. One moment the mussels on the pilings would be above your head, dripping salt water. The next moment they would be under four or five feet of water as the dory went up over a ground swell. Trying to stand up in the pitching dory and taking swipes at the mussels with the shovel, as the dory shot up and then dropped down was an exciting situation. It was always nice to finish getting enough mussels and row from between the piling, out of the shadows into the warm sunlight.—Hugh R. McMillan, Beach Rat Days
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