This is a piece of art telling the story of a group of men fishing a pound net. The story behind this art is a piece of my left. The only Pound netting I ever done was in the upper bay in the Northeast River. Usually there were six or seven men, a cook and her husband. In the middle of March we would start out in the early morning with a fair tide. All the boats in tow. Two workboats, fish skiff, and anything that we needed pertaining to poundnetting. We would leave from Tilghman and set course for Turkey Point, at the mouth of the Northeast River. We would be gone for three or four months. We would be fishing for herring, shad, and rockfish. We leased a cabin on the shore and called it a shanty. We would set four nets. Tried to have one on and fishing by the first of April. This would pay some expenses that occurred. Tilghman Packing Co. would buy all of the herring, and the good fish, shad, rock, etc. Some times we could get home for a short weekend after all the nets were on. Everything was manual labor, very hard work. This fishery is gone in the upper bay probably never to return.
