254 



BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



continued plentiful in Massachusetts Bay during the first half of the nineteenth 

 century when small bass were still being netted in abundance along the beaches 

 between Boston Harbor and Cohasset, while the bass fishery of Cape Cod Bay was 

 still so productive that 300 good-sized fish were taken at one seine haul at the 

 mouth of Barnstable Harbor in July, 1829. Seven hundred were taken in a day at 

 Provincetown as recently as October, 1859. In those days bass fishing in the surf 

 with hook and line was as well recognized a sport at various beaches about Massa- 

 chusetts Bay as it now is on the middle Atlantic coast of the United States; but 

 even as long ago as 1862 Freeman (in his history of Cape Cod) wrote that these 

 fish were far less plentiful than of old, and it is now many years since we have heard 

 of a bass caught on hook and line in Massachusetts Bay ; while for the past quarter 

 century, at least, they have been so rare in the inner parts of the bay that the 

 capture of even a single fish there by any method has been an unusual event. 

 Thus, none at all were reported (though odd fish may perhaps have been taken) 

 from Essex County during the period 1903 to 1910, nor in 1919. As appears from 

 the following table of returns from the traps, bass have never fallen to quite as 

 low an ebb as this along Cape Cod or in Cape Cod Bay, but even there, and in the 

 best years, the annual catch has long been negligible from the commercial stand- 

 point. 



Catch of bass in the Massachusetts Bay — Cape Cod region from 1S96 to 1921 ' 



1 These figures are only approximate. 



The years 1S97 and 1921 stand out as notable exceptions when bass were 

 m#e plentiful locally than for many years previous. In the former year the catch 

 was chiefly from Provincetown; in the latter all but one or two of the fish were from 

 the close proximity of the mouth of the Cape Cod Canal at Sandwich, which was 

 opened a few years previous and through which the bass in question may have 

 worked. A considerable number of small bass, which did not find their way into 

 the official returns, were also taken in the inlets along the outer shore of Cape Cod 

 in 1921 or the year previous. 



We have not been able to learn whether any bass still finger about the mouth 

 of the Merrimac River. A number were seined there in 1892 but only an odd fish 

 in 1897, 17 while they have certainly been scarce there since the middle of the past 

 century. Although the extensive series of salt and brackish estuaries and creeks on 

 either side of its mouth might seem excellent bass water, there is nothing in the 

 early accounts to suggest that bass were ever as plentiful thereabouts as in Boston 



" One small fish seined at East Haverhill. 



