They Still Go Home

The following section of this book is dedicated to some very special people: Jack Ennis, Tom Houlihan, Charlie Pittman, Stan Ennis, Leo Pomroy, Pat Pomroy and Lar Pitcher. These are all very familiar names to all of us, with one thing in common - better fishermen you will find nowhere. There is perhaps nobody anywhere in the land who worked so hard for so long and for so little, at least in monetary terms up until a few years ago as did these men. Each and every one is honest and god fearing, and has worked selflessly under the hardest conditions to raise families, who as we look around us today should feel proud of their parents.

These seven were picked out not because they were the only seven in Merasheen that fitted that description, because as you know every fisherman in Merasheen falls into this category. These men lived and fished all their lives in Merasheen; resettled from Merasheen in the sixties; and have come back every year since resettlement to fish again on the grounds they know as well as the palm of their hand; these men along with just about every other man in Merasheen thought it was perfectly natural to get up at 12:00 or 1:00 am each morning to cast caplin in the Back Cove or seine them across the end of the land; or in the fall of the year jig squid in the Jigging Cove; in the winter time suffer the hardships of the icy spray down in the Bight hauling herring nets; work until six or seven in the evening at the most gruelling work one could imagine; and then if there was a dance or party, each would gather at the hall or at a friend's house until it was time to unmoor the punt again at 1:00 am. Most of us cannot remember when conditions were as bad as mentioned above, but each of these men experienced it in their early days of fishing. As mentioned before, one could write on every fisherman in Merasheen, but the seven are singled out because up to the writing of this book are still fishing out of Merasheen each summer.