FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



227 



slows the growth of any fish) probably does not 

 take place until they have passed their third 

 birthday. Nothing definite is known of the rate 

 of growth of the white hake, but it is fair to 

 assume that it grows faster than the squirrel, to 

 attain its greater length and weight. 



General range. — Both the white hake and the 

 squirrel hake are exclusively American, occurring 

 in continental waters from the Gulf of St. Lawrence 

 and the southern part of the Grand Bank of 

 Newfoundland southward to the Middle Atlantic 

 States. The squirrel, though common as far 

 south as Chesapeake Bay, has not been reported 

 from farther south than Virginia. But the white 

 hake is known off North Carolina (we have seen 

 a 30 inch specimen that was trawled off Bodie I., 

 North Carolina, lat. 35°52' N., long. 74°51' W. in 

 70 fathoms by the Albatross II, Feb. 24, 1931). 

 And very likely the "squirrel" actually ranges as 

 far south as the "white" does. Both of them 

 occur from near tide mark, the squirrel down to 

 about 175 fathoms, the white down to about 545 

 fathoms. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — Hake are 

 very common fish in our Gulf, where the two 

 species, white and squirrel, are caught side by 

 side regularly. In the Bay of Fundy there are so 

 few toward the head that stragglers are caught, or 

 none at all, but they are plentiful enough toward 

 the mouth where, for example, about 6,400,000 

 pounds were landed on the Nova Scotian side by 

 Canadian fishermen in 1944, and about 8,200,000 

 pounds in 1946, while the yearly catch on the 

 New Brunswick side is about 500,000 to 600,000 

 pounds. Other centers of abundance for them 

 inshore are along the coast of Maine between 

 Machias and Mount Desert Island, in Frenchman's 

 Bay (formerly the site of an important hake 

 fishery), the ground known locally as the 

 "Grumpy" near Isle au Haut, and off Penobscot 

 Bay. 



Sundry small grounds outside the islands from 

 Penobscot Bay to Cape Elizabeth and all along 

 the western side of the Gulf, also yield good 

 numbers of hakes, especially near Boon Island; 

 the vicinity of the Isles of Shoals, a famous hake 

 ground for small boat fishermen; Ipswich Bay; 

 the lower slopes of Jeffreys and Stellwagen Banks; 

 also the deeper parts of Massachusetts Bay, which 

 yielded 750,000 pounds in 1919 when the demand 

 for hake was better than it is now. 



Hake, indeed, are so widespread on the lower 

 slopes of all the banks and ledges in the inner 

 parts of the Gulf, as well as on the mud floors 

 between them, that Rich 34 listed 119 named 

 grounds in the western side of the Gulf as good 

 haking bottoms. Hake, with flounders, rosefish, 

 and silver hake are practically the only commer- 

 cially valuable fish one is likely to catch on the 

 floors of the deep basins and channels of the Gulf; 

 and a catch of 2,880 of them with 580 cusk, but 

 no cod or haddock, by long-line fishing 15 miles 

 southeast of Monhegan on June 24 to 25, 1913, 

 will illustrate how completely they may monop- 

 olize suitable bottoms. 



Hake are plentiful in the so-called South Chan- 

 nel also, and on the northwest slope of Georges 

 Bank, whence about 2,000,000 pounds were landed 

 in 1919, about 1,500,000 pounds in 1947. And 

 it has long been known that there is an abundance 

 of hake at depths greater than 60 to 70 fathoms 

 all along the southern slope of Georges Bank. 

 Long-line fishermen, too, have told us that while 

 it was unusual to hook a hake on the shoaler 

 parts of Georges, many were caught wherever the 

 line was run off into deeper water on the northwest 

 face of the bank; i. e., onto soft bottom. And this 

 is borne out by the statistics of the catches, for 

 the good trawling grounds on Georges Bank 

 yield far fewer hake of marketable size than the 

 inner parts of the Gulf do, if the year 1945 can 

 be taken as representative. 36 



It has only been since 1944 that the landings of 

 white hake and of red (i. e., squirrel) hake 

 have been reported separately. Taken at their 

 face value, these would point to the white hake 

 as by far the more plentiful member of the pair 

 throughout the inner parts of the Gulf as a whole, 

 and on Georges Bank. In 1945, for example, 39 

 the reported landings were some 14 times as great 

 for white as for red hake, for every one of the 

 subdivisions into which the inner part of the Gulf 

 is divided for statistical purposes, while only a 

 few thousand pounds of red hake were reported 

 from off eastern or central Maine, or from the 

 northwestern part of Georges Bank; and none 

 from the eastern or southwestern part of the 



« Rept. U. S. Comm., Fish. (1929) 1930, App. 3, pp. 85-86, 96. 



" Landings of hake In 1945 were about 414,000 pounds lor Georges Bank; 

 about 12,700,000 pounds for the Inner parts of the Gulf by United States 

 fishermen and about 9,140,000 pounds by Canadian fishermen. 



n The only year when the landings of the two have been reported by 

 counties for Maine and Massachusetts, besides the landings at the major ports. 



