RUNNING ON THE FISH BAGS
by John Lou Ennis

Another exciting time in my childhood days was the trap season. Ab Best, Tom Barry, Jack Hann, and Din Walsh, fishermen from Barry's Bottom, would tow their trap catch into the Bottom in fish bags. Between them they would have ten or twelve traps and haul anywhere from sixty to seventy quintals at a time. I remember one evening fifteen hundred quintals of fish being towed into Merasheen at one time, from several boats of course.

They had to be careful putting the fish in the bags, leaving little room for the fish to make a plunge or dive and sink the bag. We youngsters would be looking forward to these big hauls of cod. Unless you lived in those days, you could hardly imagine how much fun could be had with those large small-mesh bags filled with fish. At that time of year, the fish would be following schools of caplin, and would be floating. The sound in the cod would be full of air, which was a great help in keeping the fish bags afloat.

There wasn't too much room in Barry's Bottom for the bags of cod towed in from the traps. At times, the bags reached right across the bottom. I can remember the Best, Pitcher, and Hann boys, along with Frank and me taking part in the sport of seeing who could run right across Barry's Bottom on the fish bags, just like we ran across Hickey’s Bottom on the pans of ice.

Standard equipment for the sport was bathing trunks and heavy woollen socks. The reason for bathing trunks is obvious. The reason for the woollen socks was so your big toes wouldn't get caught in the small mesh of the bags. You wouldn't want any impediment, especially something like tripping up in your own toes, as you ran across the water is Barry's Bottom.
 

Occasionally you would meet a soft place in the bag and sink to your waist in water, but no deeper because you couldn't sink the floating fish keeping the bag on the surface of the water. In spite of what some of the adults thought, it really wasn't dangerous. I wonder will anyone ever have the pleasure of enjoying that sport again?