New England Salmon Hatcheries and Salmon Fisheries in the Late 19th CenturyVarious
History
New England Salmon Hatcheries and Salmon Fisheries in the Late 19th Century
Various
Fish hatcheries -- New England; Fisheries -- New England; Salmon -- New England
A special inquiry, personally conducted on Matinicus, Monhegan, and
other islands lying far off the Maine coast, and special researches
there made with appropriate apparatus, would doubtless disclose many
interesting facts regarding the salmon of a practical and scientific
nature. A few apparently unrecorded notes concerning the fish among
islands off the island of Mount Desert may be given, which are probably
indicative of what may be expected in other sections.
Mr. W. I. Mayo, who has fished herring brush-weirs at the Cranberry
Isles for many years, and is a life-long fisherman in that section,
communicates the intelligence that salmon were first observed about
those islands in 1888. On June 17 a salmon, weighing 20 pounds, was
taken in a herring weir, and on June 19 another, weighing 19 pounds,
was caught. On July 14 of the same year 6 salmon, weighing 4 to 6
pounds apiece, were secured, but were liberated on account of their
size. During the four years intervening between 1888 and 1893 none was
taken around these islands, but in June of the latter year they
reappeared. On June 11 a salmon weighing 15 pounds was taken in a weir,
and on various occasions during that month a number weighing 12 to 15
pounds each were caught by boat fishermen on trawl lines fished for
cod.
The trawls were baited with herring and set on the bottom in rather
deep water. Mr. Mayo states that these were the first salmon ever taken
on trawl lines in that region. The Cranberry Isles lie off the
southeastern part of Mount Desert Island, and are about 25 miles east
from Penobscot Bay and about 35 miles in a straight line from the mouth
of the Penobscot River.
On the Massachusetts coast salmon are now regularly taken each year at
most of the important pound-net and trap fisheries. The largest numbers
are caught in Cape Cod Bay. A State law prohibits the taking of salmon
in nets and requires the return to the water alive of all fish so
caught. This makes the fishermen diffident about giving information and
renders difficult the determination of the abundance of the fish. On
June 6, 1879 the _Cape Ann Advertiser_, of Gloucester, contained the
following note:
"A 10-pound salmon was taken from a weir off Magnolia Thursday night.
This is the first salmon caught off Cape Ann for over thirty years. On
Saturday morning three more large salmon were taken. The fishermen are
highly elated at the prospect of salmon-catching."
During the past five or six years a few salmon have been taken almost
every season in the vicinity of Gloucester, the average annual catch
being 4 to 6 fish. In 1888 the State fish commissioners reported the
capture of 18 salmon in traps at Manchester and Gloucester. In 1893, 13
traps in the neighborhood of Gloucester took 5 salmon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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