96 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



have seen them there. They are even more er- 

 ratic, too, in their appearances and disappearances 

 in Massachusetts Bay and along Cape Cod than 

 they are to the eastward of Mount Desert. At 

 Cohasset, for example, on the southern shore of 

 the Bay where we have had many years' experi- 

 ence, schools of sperling are here today in summer 

 and early autumn, but gone tomorrow. It is 

 also our impression that the sperling, like the 

 larger herring, are not only far less concentrated 

 in favorable localities around the southwestern 

 shore of the Gulf than they are to the north and 

 east, but far less numerous on the whole.* 8 



These first two year classes (the fish in their 

 first year having grown to a length of 3 or 4 inches 

 by September; those in their second year to 7 to 

 9 inches) begin to thin out from the shore waters 

 of the open Gulf after the middle of October as 

 the water cools, and few "sardines" are taken 

 there after early December. 



The corresponding ebb and flow, so to speak, 

 for the sardine is suggested in a striking way by 

 the average monthly catches of sardines by the 

 weirs in Charlotte Co., New Brunswick (Passama- 

 quoddy Bay, Campobello, and Grand Manan) 

 for the year 1920, which are equally illustrative 

 of conditions today : 



Month 



January 



February.. 

 March 



Founds Month Founds 



11,000 July 3,315,000 



None August 6, 475, 000 



56,000 September 6,730,000 



April 1,049,000 October 6,012,000 



May 3,036,000 November 1,325,000 



June. 2,542,000 December 147,000 



Here, however, the seasonal variation (as Dr. 

 Huntsman informs us) is simply a matter of local 

 availability, for sardines remain in Passama- 

 quoddy Bay all winter, but do not move about 

 much then. Probably the sardines winter mostly 

 on the bottom. And there is no reason to sup- 

 pose that the bulk of them travel far in any part 

 of the Gulf. 



Very little is known about the Gulf of Maine 

 herring during their third summer, when they 

 have passed the "sardine" or sperling stage and 

 have not yet reached spawning age. In some 

 years these "fat" herring, as they are often called, 



or "summer" herring, weighing up to about one 

 pound (they are called "spawn" herring locally, 

 but this is an error), are taken in the traps at 

 Provincetown for a week or so about mid-April; 

 they are taken at about the same time off Glouces- 

 ter (in 1915 they were reported 8 to 15 miles 

 off Cape Ann on the 17th), and they are said by 

 the fishermen to "show" first off Seguin Island in 

 May and June, off Mount Desert late in summer. 

 Doubtless they form a large part (just what pro- 

 portion is not known) of the catches of herring 

 larger than sardines that are made in the Passa- 

 maquoddy Bay region, also around Grand Manan. 

 As a rule few of them are taken inside the inner 

 islands elsewhere, though they came into the har- 

 bor of Boothbay about May 14 in 1914. 



When a mackerel seiner picks up a school of 

 herring out in the open Gulf in summer, 49 or when 

 an otter trawler makes a catch of herring on 

 Georges Bank (p. 95), most of them are very fat 

 and show no signs of approaching sexual matu- 

 rity. Thus it seems that they tend to keep farther 

 offshore than do either the younger herring or the 

 still older mature herring. 



The peak season for herring larger than "sar- 

 dines" inshore in the northeastern part of the 

 Gulf is ordinarily from July through October; i. e., 

 some 2 months less than that for the sardines (see 

 p. 96). But a greater proportion of the larger 

 fish continue available there through the cold 

 months than of the younger fish, to judge from 

 the fact that considerably larger catches are made 

 of big herring in winter than of sardines, whereas 

 the total local catch is much larger for the latter 

 than for the former. 



A report w on the average monthly landings of 

 large herring for Charlotte County, for the period 

 1920-1931, to the nearest 1,000 pounds, follows: 



Month 



January 



February. . 

 March 



48 No particular attention is paid to sperling around Massachusetts Bay, 

 for they are too small to be In demand for bait, and they are not plentiful 

 enough (or not concentrated enough) to support a sardine fishery there. 



Pounds Month Pounds 



132,000 July. 1,065,000 



164,000 August 4,334,000 



275,000 September 7,098,000 



April.... 312,000 October 2,817,000 



May 306, 000 November 646, 000 



June 284,000 December 268,000 



Large herrings, yearly average 17, 701, 000 



"Sardines", yearly average 30, 698, 000 



« Many events of this sort have been reported. For example, a large catch 

 of fat summer herring was made on Georges Bank and reported to the Massa- 

 chusetts Commissioners in the mid-summer of 1901. 



» From Graham, Jour. Biol. Board Canada, vol. 2, No. 2, 1936, p. 130, 

 table 3. 



