In Cape Cod waters there are more pole-traps, or weirs, than in any other section of the Atlantic coast. Most of them are off Provincetown, and part of the large profits they yield help enrich the town government coffers. Long poles of tough hickory are shipped in from Connecticut. Seventy of these are needed to drape the nets of a single trap. First in the structure of a trap is the “leader”, a 900-foot subterranean fence. This fence begins in shoal water and extends offshore to the main body of the trap. When fish swim into it, they do not turn inshore. As a rule they follow along the fence and swim offshore. Thus, the schools obligingly move into the mouth of the trap. From there they go into the trap “heart”, which is the first stage of their captivity, and thence into the “bowl”. Once inside the bowl the baffled finny tribes are completely hoodwinked and rarely escape into open water. Here they swim around and around until the trapping crew pays the morning visit and the net is hauled up and pursed for the bailers to go into action. Commercial fishing in Cape Cod Bay provided the means for establishing Massachusetts’ public school system. The Pilgrims appropriated the profits to public uses. Portions of the fishery fund were allocated to various towns. Barnstable, Cape Cod, being one of the beneficiaries in 1683. When the Pilgrims went to King James to get his consent for the Mayflower voyage to America, the King, according to Edward Winslow’s narrative, inquired, “What profit might arise?” A single word was the Pilgrims’ response: “Fishing.” James was satisfied: “So God have my soul, ’tis an honest trade, ’twas the Apostle’s own calling.” ROMANTIC EARLY DAYS Subsequently, Captain John Smith, after he had pocketed a profit of $7500 on a shipment of dried Cape Cod fish to Spain, is credited with the statement that the richest mine in Spain was not as valuable as the Cape Cod fisheries. Whales first were caught in these waters. When they became scarce vessels were fitted to go out in search of them. On one voyage, Capt. Jesse Holbrook of Wellfleet, active in the Revolutionary War period, killed 52 sperm whales. His skill was so good a London company employed him for 12 years to give instruction to their employees. Franklin Atkins was a Cape Codder who had a rare experience while whaling in West Indies waters. Leviathan’s flukes struck the small boat he was in and sent the boat kiting from the sea. In his descent Mr. Atkins fell directly into the whale’s gaping mouth. He was gashed and bruised, but managed to free himself. A boat crew picked him up and he lay in a critical condition for four weeks. In later years Mr. Atkins would boast, “Jonah and me were the only two persons that have been in a whale’s mouth and come out alive.”