240 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



until about 1S97, a season when the traps on its east and west sides accounted for 

 about 9,000 pounds. Since that time, however, the catch of bluefish for the whole 

 Gulf of Maine has never again been so large. From 1906 until 1911 the returns for 

 the Gulf of Maine shores of the cape ran from less than 100 to about 4,000 pounds 

 yearly, the north shore of Massachusetts Bay yielding from none at all up to 600 

 pounds. Since 1917, when the State of Massachusetts resumed publication of the 

 pound-net statistics after a lapse of 5 years, the largest annual catches north of the 

 elbow of Cape Cod have been 668 pounds (about 60 or 70 fish) caught off Essex 

 County, Mass., during the summer of 1919, and 521 pounds taken in the traps near 

 Gloucester in 1921, in which summer (as we have been informed) some small bluefish 

 4 to 5 inches long were also caught off Plymouth, and at least one small bluefish 

 (about 1>2 pounds) was taken at Beverly, Mass., in July, 1922, with a lot of shad, 

 which it may have been following. 



For the past 30 years Cape Ann has been the extreme northern boundary for 

 this fish, except that some young fry (about 2)4, inches long) were taken in Casco 

 Bay in August, 1899, and a few small-sized fish (but no adults) there the following 

 summer. 



Although the available statistics leave much to be desired, they demonstrate 

 beyond dispute that only once during the memory of men now living or of 

 their fathers or grandfathers have bluefish been common anywhere in the Gulf of 

 Maine, but that they were extremely abundant as far north as Cape Ann for a period 

 of over 20 years. The disappearance of bluefish from Massachusetts Bay was part 

 of a general shrinkage of the bluefish stock inhabiting our northern waters east of 

 New York as a whole, so pronounced that while the New England catch (Massachu- 

 setts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut) ran about 3,000,000 pounds annually in the 

 early eighties, it was but little more than 1,000,000 in 1889, had fallen to 689,160 by 

 1902, showed a steady decline from then until 1906, and was only about 34,000 

 pounds in 1919. From time to time during this period, however, there have been 

 exceptionally good seasons when great numbers of bluefish have appeared off 

 southern New England to interrupt this ebb. In 1908, for example, they were more 

 plentiful in Vineyard Sound than for many years, while in 1901 a school 4 or 5 miles 

 long was reported in Narragansett Bay. Apparently it is only in the northern part 

 of its range that the bluefish has diminished notably in numbers. 



The bluefish never has supported a fishery of any magnitude in the Gulf of 

 Maine — perhaps never will. Nevertheless its presence or absence there is a matter 

 of direct importance to the fishing interests, for when it swarms it may actually 

 drive away the mackerel, if not the herring and menhaden. While it is now many 

 years since bluefish have been plentiful enough north of Cape Cod to matter one 

 way or the other, history will no doubt repeat itself sooner or later and these sea 

 pirates will again invade the Gulf in abundance, probably for several summers in 

 succession. 



Habits. — The bluefish travels in schools, mostly near the surface, and is perhaps 

 the most ferocious and bloodthirsty fish in the sea, leaving in its wake a trail of dead 

 and mangled mackerel, menhaden, herring, alewives, etc., on all of which it preys. 

 As Goode, et al. (1884, p. 574) , long ago wrote in their vivid and oft-quoted account 



