FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



131 



were as follows for the west coast of Nova Scotia 

 and for the Bay of Fundy combined : 



Years Pounds 



1870-1879 655,200 



1880-1889 292,700 



1890-1899 634,000 



1900-1909 576,800 



Years Pounds 



1910-1919 540,000 



1920-1929 470,300 



1930-1939 424,000 



1940-1946 278,000 



The Canadian catch in the open Gulf and in the 

 Bay of Fundy may be expected to run about 

 400,000 to 600,000 pounds at the present time, 

 taking one year with another, or something like 

 40,000 to 60,000 fish, which is perhaps 100 times 

 as great as that for the entire coastline of Maine 

 and of Massachusetts. And the distribution of the 

 catches shows that the St. John River contributes 

 something like four-fifths of this, or a yearly aver- 

 age of some 50,000 fish, 8 " contrasting with only a 

 few hundred fish for the Penobscot in a poor year, 

 and perhaps up to 8,000 in a good. 



Salmon anglers are only too familiar with the 

 fact that the number of fish that enter even the 

 best of salmon rivers is much smaller in some 

 years than in others. During the 16-year period, 

 1931-1946, the commercial catches reported for 

 St. John Harbor and St. John River (best salmon 

 river tributary to the Gulf of Maine) were good 

 in 1931 (164,000 lbs.); in 1935 (149,300 lbs.); 

 in 1936 (148,600 lbs.); in 1937 (172,700 lbs.); and 

 in 1943 (157,500 lbs.); but were poor in 1939 

 (48,500 lbs.); in 1945 (60,000 lbs.) and in 1946 

 (54,500 lbs.). The yearly average for this period 

 was 116,000 pounds. 



'• Huntsman (Bull. 21, Biol. Board Canada, 1931) has made a very Inter- 

 esting analysis of catches for the Bay of Fundy as a whole, as woll as for the 

 St. John, for the Chignecto system, and for the Minas system, separately. 



In the Minas system the fishery produced as 

 much as 383,800 pounds in 1907, 283,400 pounds 

 in 1917, and 226,500 pounds in 1918; but since 

 then, up to 1946, the best catches have been only 

 160,700 pounds in 1919, 165,100 pounds in 1923, 

 and 143,300 pounds in 1925, while the poorest 

 were 28,100 pounds in 1938 and 26,600 pounds in 

 1945. The average yearly catch from 1917 to 

 1930 was 133,000 pounds, and from 1931 to 1946, 

 48,000 pounds. 



The reader will notice at once that the big years 

 have not been the same for these two bodies of 

 salmon. It seems sufficiently established that 

 yearly and regional differences, such as these, 

 result in the main from corresponding differences 

 in the numbers of smolts that reach salt water in 

 any given year. And recent investigations in 

 Canadian waters make it likely that the factor 

 chiefly responsible is the height of the water from 

 summer to summer, or over periods of several 

 summers, which of course reflects the yearly vari- 

 ations in rainfall. If the water is high the pan- 

 arc protected from the birds that prey upon them 

 and are more easily able to escape the trout, so 

 that many survive to descend to the sea and to 

 return one, two, or three years later. If the water 

 in the river is low the parr are more at the mercy 

 of kingfishers, megansers, and trout, so that fewer 

 of them live to reach salt water, and there are 

 fewer of them to return as grilse or as older fish. 



Humpback salmon Oncorhynchus gorbuscha 

 (Walbaum) 1792 



Jordan and Evermann, 1896-1900, p. 478. 



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Figure 55. — Humpback salmon {Oncorhynchus gorbuscha). 



