[Illustration: Haul-seining or dragging fish ashore by enclosing them in a long net, is a form of fishing that has thrived almost unchanged through the ages. Its practice at Jamestown was limited by the lack of nets.]
[Illustration: The toothsome Chesapeake Bay hard crab was, and is still to a great extent today, taken by baits spaced along lines sunk to the bottom and then raised and the tenacious crabs removed.]
[Illustration: Vast quantities of river herring were taken in haul-seines in the spring throughout Tidewater Virginia. A crew dragged the fish ashore to a force of women cutters waiting to prepare them for salting down.]
[Illustration: Great living oyster mounds, built up by nature through the ages, impeded ships in the lower James river. At high tide they were hidden so that unwary pilots struck them; at low they could be picked over by hand. They remained a threat to navigation until they disappeared under three centuries of harvesting.
[Illustration: Fishing implements excavated at Jamestown. The large fish-hook was for ocean cod fishing or possibly for snagging sturgeon in the river. The spear, attached to a wooden handle, was for stalking big fish in shallow water, or for capturing those that could be attracted to a light in a boat at night. The lead weights were suitable for (right) a handline, (left) a net.
[Illustration: Early salt-evaporating houses were located close by the sea, from which the water was channeled in by slow stages to take advantage of natural evaporation before wood fires finished the job. When the crystals formed they were shoveled into conical baskets and drained.]
An 18th century plan of a solar-evaporating works. Sea water is channeled into the primary reservoir (DD), from which it is conducted to (FFF) and (KKK) by progressive stages to the final basins where it crystallizes.]
The kernel of the situation was reflected by the Dutch traveler, David De Vries, who made voyages to America from 1632 to 1644:
In going down to Jamestown on board of a sloop, a sturgeon sprang out of the river, into the sloop. We killed it, and it was eight feet long. This river is full of sturgeon, as also are the two rivers of New Netherland. When the English first began to plant their Colony here, there came an English ship from England for the purpose of fishing for sturgeon; but they found that this fishery would not answer, because it is so hot in summer, which is the best time for fishing, that the salt or pickle would not keep them as in Muscovy whence the English obtain many sturgeon and where the climate is colder than in the Virginias.