218 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



line, at least 7,300,000 pounds; :3 Nova Scotian 

 shore of Bay of Fundy, about 500,000 to 1,000,000 

 pounds; u inner part of Bay of Fundy on New 

 Brunswick side (Albert County), 0; mouth of 

 the Bay of Fundy on New Brunswick side, about 

 2,000,000 to 3,500,000 pounds; IS off eastern 

 Maine, about 1,045,000 pounds; off central Maine, 

 about 2,573,000 pounds; small fishing banks 

 in west-central part of the Gulf, about 516,000 

 pounds; off western Maine, about 1,861.000 

 pounds ; off eastern Massachusetts and off northern 

 Cape Cod, about 7,347,000 pounds; Cape Cod 

 out to the so-called South Channel, about 

 1,518,000 pounds; Georges Bank as a whole, 

 about 3,184,000 pounds. 



In general, pollock are more abundant around 

 the coastal belt of the Gulf, out about to the 

 75 to 80 fathom line, on the isolated fishing grounds 

 enclosed within that depth limit, and over the 

 offshore banks than they are over the deeper 

 central basin of the Gulf; though some are taken 

 there also. And this has always been one of the 

 principal fishes to be caught with hook and line 

 on the various small banks and ledges in the inner 

 part of the Gulf; near Lurcher Shoal for instance; 

 on Grand Manan Bank; on Jeffreys Ledge, and 

 on Stellwagen Bank at the entrance to Massa- 

 chusetts Bay, while the neighborhoods of Boon 

 Island and of the Isles of Shoals long have been 

 famous pollock grounds. 



Pollock are decidedly less plentiful on the 

 Nantucket grounds in general (only about 56,000 

 pounds landed thence in 1947) and west of Cape 

 Cod than they are either farther within the Gulf 

 to the northward or on Georges Bank to the east- 

 ward. But commercial quantities are caught 

 yearly (in season) along southern New England 

 and New York. The landings for Rhode Island, 

 Connecticut, and New York, combined, ranged, 

 for example, between 787,000 pounds and 883,000 

 pounds for the years 1930 to 1933. And though 

 the landings ran less than one-half as great (be- 

 tween 135,000 pounds and 452,000 pounds) for 

 1935 to 1947 we suspect that this decrease re- 

 sulted from market conditions, rather than from 



any decrease in the numbers of pollock that are 

 available there. A few hundreds or thousands 

 of pounds of pollock are landed yearly 19 in New 

 Jersey ports also. But this is the extreme southern 

 limit for the pollock as a market fish. 



To the eastward and northward, we find pol- 

 lock caught in abundance all along the outer Nova 

 Scotian coast and banks. In 1946, for example, 

 840,000 pounds were landed in Guysborough 

 County, Nova Scotia, and 277,200 pounds along 

 the Atlantic coast of Cape Breton Island, east of 

 the Gut of Canso. 17 This, however, is the north- 

 eastern limit of our pollock as a market fish of any 

 importance. True, a few thousand pounds were 

 reported yearly from the southeastern side of the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence near the Gut of Canso during 

 the early nineteen hundreds. 18 But the catch is 

 so small that pollock have not been mentioned in 

 the catch statistics for more recent years, nor any- 

 where else within the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 



Small pollock, 8 to 10 inches long and weighing 

 less than half a pound (1 or 2 years old) swarm 

 inshore after early April, when we have seen thou- 

 sands of them taken from the traps at Gloucester 

 and Magnolia. In the southern part of Massa- 

 chusetts Bay these "harbor pollock," as they are 

 called locally, move out in June, probably to avoid 

 the rising temperature, to return again in autumn. 

 But they continue abundant all summer and au- 

 umn in the harbors and bays and among the 

 islands along the coast northward from Cape Ann 

 and eastward to Nova Scotia. Most of them seek 

 slightly deeper water in winter, however, probably 

 to avoid the cold. 



The larger fish tend to keep farther offshore than 

 the small ones; they live deeper on the whole, ex- 

 cept when they are pursuing some particular feed 

 (p. 214), and they are caught in more definite local- 

 ities, not everywhere and anywhere along the 

 coast as are the little fish. In the southwestern 

 part of the Gulf, as exemplified by Massachusetts 

 Bay and by the belt from Cape Ann to the Isles 



» U. S. catch, 492,400 pounds, 1946; Canadian catches 7,017,000 pounds In 

 1944 and 6,642,000 pounds In 1946, besides an Indeterminate amount landed 

 along this part of the Shelbume County coast line. 



» 1944, 513,000 pounds; 1946, 983,000 pounds. 



'• Charlotte and St. Johns Counties, about 2,000,000 pounds in 1944, about 

 3,507,000 in 1946. 



'• Maximum, 10,700 pounds, minimum 600 pounds for the years 1930-1937 

 and 1939-1947, 101,200 pounds were credited to New Jersey In 1938; an amount 

 so much larger than usual as to suggest that it was because ofeconomlc reasons 

 that the fish were landed in New Jersey rather than in New York. 



" Richmond County, Nova Scotia, 223,600 pounds; Cape Breton County, 

 53,600 pounds. 



» Yearly catch, 1,600-4,000 pounds; for 1902 to 1906 and 1909 to 1915-1916, 

 61,500 pounds were credited to Inverness County in 1901, but this amount is 

 so much larger than usual as to suggest some error. 



