112 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



town at the tip of Cape Cod, some 1,200 miles 

 away from where it had been tagged 444 days 

 previous. 21 And one, from a batch of weir-caught 

 fish tagged on the coast of Maine, August- 

 September, 1948, was recaught in the Medway 

 River, outer coast of Nova Scotia, a second, in the 

 Miramichi River, tributary to the southern side of 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1950, and a third, off 

 Tor Bay, eastern Nova Scotia in 1951. 



To what extent the seasonal journeys of the sbad 

 are passive with the dominant circulatory move- 

 ments of the water, and to what extent (if any) 

 they are self-directed is perhaps the most interest- 

 ing question that now faces us in our studies of the 

 shad of the Gulf of Maine. 



Shad have been trawled 50 to 60 miles out, off 

 eastern Nova Scotia; 22 have often been reported 

 40 to 50 miles out off the coast of Maine; also 

 25 to 90 miles out, off southern New England, 23 

 and we saw one trawled by the Eugene H in late 

 June, 1951, on the southern part of Georges 

 Bank (lat. 40°52'N., long. 67°40'W.), about 110 

 miles from the nearest land. Evidently they may 

 wander as far offshore as alewives do; perhaps 

 even as far as herring. 



Shad reared in different regions may, perhaps, 

 prove to differ enough hi racial characters for 

 recognition when taken at sea, but this is a ques- 

 tion for the future. 24 



Abundance. — The stock of shad in the Gulf is 

 but a shadow in comparison with that of colonial 

 days. 



In 1896, the only year for which detailed 

 information is available as to the numbers taken 

 in different streams, 290,122 shad were reported 

 as caught in the Kennebec system, 9,000 in the 

 Pleasant River, about 3,000 in the Harrington 

 River, only 114 in the Penobscot and 12 in the St. 

 Croix; 100 in the Piscataqua and 7 in the Merri- 



ll See Vladykov, Nat. C3nad., vol. 77, 1950, p. 121, for a detailed account 

 of his tagging experiments on St. Lawrence River shad. 



22 Vladykov, Copeia, 1930, No. 2, p. 108, reports between 25 and 30 shad of 

 4-0 pounds, taken per haul, by otter trawlers in March, 1935, southwest of 

 Middle Ground, about lat. 44 c 25' N., long. 01°05' W., at about 50 fathoms. 



22 Two shad were trawled by Albatross III on the eastern part of Nantucket 

 Shoals at 08 fathoms, and 40 others at 9 stations distributed thence westward 

 to the offing to Montauk Point (long. 71°52' W.) at 20-04 fathoms, May 11-18, 

 1950. 



2< Vladykov and Wallace (Trans. Amer. Fish. Soc, vol. 07, 1937-1938, pp. 

 52-00) believe that Shubenacadie, Delaware River and Chesapeake Bay 

 shad differ significantly in average number of vertebrae, of mid ventral 

 scales and of pectoral fin rays. But Warfel and Olsen (Copeia, 1947, pp. 

 177-183) doubt whether any distinction can be drawn between shad in various 

 streams along our North Atlantic coast, at least as far as average number of 

 vertebrae goes. 



mac. 25 In that same year the catch was about 

 1,059,000 pounds for the Nova Scotia shore of 

 the open Gulf and for the Bay of Fundy; 26 

 1,404,477 pounds for the rivers and coast of 

 Maine; about 122,932 pounds (32,782 fish) for 

 the Gulf of Maine coast of Massachusetts, or a 

 total of about 2,586,400 pounds for the Gulf as 

 a whole. With shad averaging about 3% pounds 

 in weight, 27 this corresponds to about 690,000 

 fish. 



But the yearly catch was only about one-third 

 as great for the period 1916-1919 as it had been 

 in 1896, whether for the United States shores of 

 the Gulf or for the Canadian. 28 And it was of 

 about that same order of magnitude in 1931, 

 i. e., 677,540 pounds for the Gulf as a whole 

 (157,763 pounds for Maine, 147,277 pounds for 

 Massachusetts, 237,200 pounds for the Bay of 

 Fundy and West Nova Scotia region). Since 

 that time, the catches have ranged between 

 10,400 pounds and 306,000 pounds for the Massa- 

 chusetts coast of the Gulf and between 9,300 

 pounds and 1,106,800 pounds for Maine, a 

 fluctuation so extreme (no regional correlation 

 appearing) as to suggest that market conditions 

 were the chief governing factor. On the other 

 hand the catches for the Canadian shores of the 

 Gulf increased rather consistently from 1931 to 

 a total of 1,287,600 pounds in 1939 then declined 

 to around 780,000 pounds for 1944 and 1946, a 

 rise and fall regular enough to suggest a corre- 

 sponding fluctuation in the actual abundance of 

 the shad. The average yearly catch for the period 

 1944-1946 combined, was about 20,000 pounds for 

 Massachusetts, about 224,050 pounds for Maine, 

 and about 780,000 pounds for the Bay of Fundy 

 and western Nova Scotia. 



Thread herring Opisthonema oglinum (LeSueur) 



1817 

 Jordan and Evermann, 1896-1900, p. 432. 



Description. — The thread herring is distinguish- 

 able at a glance from all the herrings that regularly 

 inhabit the Gulf of Maine by the prolonged last 

 ray (usually about as long as the body is deep) of 

 its dorsal fin. It resembles the gizzard shad of 



2» Stevenson, Rept. U. S. Comm. Fish (1898) 1899 pp. 205-209. 



2' These catches were reported as "barrels" presumably of 200 pounds each. 



2i Stevenson, Rept. U. S. Comm. Fish (1898) 1899, p. 121. 



2» About 400,000 pounds for the United States coast, of the Gulf and 

 about 374,000 pounds for the Bay of Fundy and in western Nova Scotia 

 combined in 1910-17. 



