116 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



a consillerable frozen-tish industry of late,^° as well as near the Isles of Shoals and 

 off York Beach in August, vrhile it has long been known that shad are present 40 

 to 50 miles at sea off the Maine coast throughout the autumn. A southward 

 movement of these Bay of Fundy and Kennebec spawners is the most reasonable 

 explanation for the 3"early presence off Cape Ann, from mid-October until into 

 December,^' of large shad running from 13^ up to 10 pounds (averaging about 5 

 pounds), that is, fish that have spawned during the preceding summer. As a rule 

 they are not abundant; sometimes, however, the pollock-netters make large hauls 

 of them, as in the autumn of 1915, when 135,000 poimds of these large fish were 

 caught near Gloucester. Sometime in December the large shad vanish, where 

 they winter still being a matter for conjecture. Probably they sink and move out 

 beyond the limits of extreme winter chilling, which may lead them to the central 

 basin of the Gulf, a suggestion yet to be confirmed by actual captures of shad in 

 winter but in line with the prevalent view that the shad of the middle and south 

 Atlantic coasts of the United States move offshore to pass the cold season on the 

 bottom. The young shad of the year, produced in southern rivers, are believed to 

 winter near the mouths of their parent streams and this probably applies to the 

 Gulf of Maine also. 



The mature shad with ripening sexual organs reappear off the western shores 

 of the Gulf of Maine in April and May, when a few are picked up by haddock- 

 netters between Cape Ann and Portland; most often about Boon Island and the 

 Isles of Shoals." So few shad now frequent the Merrimac that it is probable these 

 "spring shad" are bound north to the Kennebec River or Bay of Fimdy. Except 

 for odd belated individuals the mature shad are all in the rivers or at least close to 

 their mouths by the 10th or 15th of June, not to reappear in the sea until July or 

 August (p. 116). 



Schools of small immature shad from a foot long and half a pound in weight 

 up to 2 or 2J^ pounds, not yet of breeding age, that is, corresponding to the "fat" 

 herring 2 or 3 years old, are reported every year at Provincetown for a short period 

 in June, are sometimes taken in the weirs at Beverly and Manchester in Massa- 

 chusetts Bay in June,-^ and are met with more or less commonly all summer off 

 Cape Ann and thence eastward, which corroborates the general belief of local 

 fishermen that they move north and east toward the Bay of Fundy as the summer 

 advances just as the "fat" herring do (p. 101). However, instead of keeping off- 

 shore these immature shad (which, like herring of corresponding age, are very fat) 

 congregate in the bays of the Maine coast, even running up into brackish estuaries 

 though never into fresh water. In Casco Bay, for example, where they have long 

 been fished for, 64,490 pounds of shad (probably "fat" fish) were caught in 1896, 

 though by 1919 the local catch had dwindled to only about 12,000 pounds (not over 



» About 250,000 pounds have been brought into the local freezers yearly from 1913 to 1915. 



" It has also been suggested that these fish are migrants from the south, visiting the rich plankton pastures of the Gulf for 

 food, an interesting possibility that the evidence yet at hand can neither prove nor disprove. 



'" A series of shad from that region examined by Welsh at various dates (April 25 to May 17, 1913) averaged precisely 5 pounds, 

 both sexes represented, and all with well-developed sexual organs. 

 - " Numbers of shad about 14 inches in length were caught in the traps at Magnolia and Beverly from June 20 to July 6, 1921. 



