FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 135 



mouths in winter (as has often heen reported) and with kelts (p. 136) on their way 

 down, salmon are to be found in the large rivers in every month in the year, as has 

 long been known for the Penobscot. 



There is no reason to suppose that the Gulf of Maine salmon regularly descend 

 to any great depth, winter or summer. On the contrary, the weirs, gill nets, etc., 

 which yield so many in various regions, are all operated in shoal water (the Baltic 

 hook-and-line fishery is carried on at about 1J^ fathoms); but the fact that salmon 

 are caught occasionally on cod trawls in the Gulf is proof that at least some go as 

 deep as 25 fathoms or more, while diet proves they not only feed pelagically, as 

 when pursuing herring, but near if not actually on bottom, where alone they could 

 find Gammarus in abundance. 



The view now generally held that the whole body of salmon, whether or not 

 destined to breed that season, moves inshore in spring no doubt applies as well to 

 the Gulf as to other seas. Only fish approaching sexual maturity (irrespective of 

 age), and the immature female "grilse" already mentioned, run far up into the 

 rivers, all others remaining in salt water or at most not running above the head of 

 tide, as has often been remarked. This vernal journey toward the coast takes place 

 long before the spawning season, odd fish even entering the Penobscot in March or 

 earlier, and salmon are to be expected in its lower reaches after the first week of 

 April. Fish apparently coming in from sea are taken off the mouth of Penobscot 

 Bay through May and June and into early July, corresponding to the fact that the 

 chief runs in the Penobscot Kiver itself occur in May and June, with a few fish 

 entering even later. Salmon enter the Nova Scotian rivers beginning late in April, 

 and the New Brunswick streams tributary to the Bay of Fundy from May on. 

 In the Shubenacadie grilse are said to run from August until late in autumn. 

 We have not been able to obtain more definite dates for the St. John River. 



A good deal of discussion has centered about the question as to whether the 

 earliest fish stay in fresh water from then until spawning time, a matter of six 

 months, or whether there is more or less movement in and out of the river mouths 

 at the beginning of the season. Probably the latter view is correct, at least for the 

 smaller streams, but it seems safe to say that after the run is well under way in late 

 May or early June no fish return to the sea until autumn. Tagging experiments 

 carried out in Canadian rivers have yielded the very interesting information that no 

 matter when a salmon runs upstream one year, it may do so either early or late the 

 next. 47 



Whether or not salmon feed in fresh water has been a muchmootedquestionon 

 which we have no first-hand information to contribute. Certainly, most students 

 and practical anglers believe that salmon feed little in fresh water and not at all as 

 the spawning season approaches, though they may occasionally snap up a minnow 

 or other tempting morsel while still fresh run. The maturing salmon of both sexes 

 lose their silvery sheen in fresh water during the summer months, to take on a dull 

 brownish or reddish hue, while the belly suffuses with some tint of red, large black 

 spots develop, and the male not only becomes variously mottled and spotted with red 

 or orange, but his jaws elongate, the lower becoming so hooked that only the tips come 



« Fifty-fifth Annual Report of the Fisheries Branch, Department of Marine and Fisheries, Canada, 1921-22 (1922), p. 19. 

 10227-1— 25 -f 10 



