Joined unto these another evil: There is great store of fish in the river, especially of sturgeon, but our men provided no more of them than present necessity, not barreling up any store against the season [when] the sturgeon returned to the sea. And not to dissemble their folly, they suffered fourteen nets, which was all they had, to rot and spoil, which by orderly drying and mending might have been preserved but being lost, all help of fishing perished. Very few of them had come equipped for fishing. Their seines were as old-fashioned as those used by the Apostles in the New Testament, the simple kind you lowered from a boat and dragged ashore. The Indians had taught them how to spear large fish and erect weirs out of stakes and brushwood to entrap migrating schools. Such methods worked well enough during the season. But in cold weather, when provisions ran low, scarcely any fish were present in the bay proper. It was different in New England and Canada. There the fishing was good the year round. The sea bottom was dragged by efficient trawl-nets, and fished with gang-lines of baited hooks, as it still is today. The cool temperatures over many months of the year made the catches much less perishable. Conditions favored an organized fish-salting industry. Though the Jamestown people had easy access to some 3,000 square miles of inland tidal water and were only a little way from the open sea, they never developed their marine riches. One good reason was that their original aims were in other directions. When the first intentions to colonize New England came to the King's notice, he asked the leaders what drew them there. The one-word answer: "Fishing." If the Virginians had been similarly queried they would have given various replies, but certainly not that one. In describing the fisheries of New England, John Smith had enthused: Let not the meanness of the word fish distaste you, for it will afford us good gold as the mines of Guiana or Tumbata, with less hazard and charge, and more certainty and facility. The need for fishermen in Virginia was officially recognized to only a slight degree. A 1610 memorandum from the Virginia Council to the authorities in London asked that an effort be made to include among the next immigrants 20 fishermen and 6 net makers. Select them with care was the word sent out in England by means of a broadside issued by the Council of Virginia, December, 1610: