FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



257 



Maine about 2,000 pounds; mouth of Bay of 

 Fundy on New Brunswick side, about 700 pounds; 

 Nova Scotian side of Bay of Fundy, about 45,000 

 pounds; off western Nova Scotia and Browns 

 Bank (Canadian and United States vessels 

 combined), about 73,000 pounds plus an indeter- 

 minate part of the landings for Skelburne County, 

 Nova Scotia, that may have come from Browns 

 Bank; Georges Bank, about 65,000 pounds; 

 South Channel, about 4,000 pounds; Nantucket 

 Shoals, about 1,400 pounds; or a total of about 

 235,000 pounds that can be credited definitely 

 to the Gulf. 



For some unknown reason, 1945 was a poor 

 year; the Georges catch alone, for example, was 

 about 110,000 pounds in 1946, about 211,000 

 pounds in 1947. 67 And the yearly catch for the 

 Gulf as a whole, by United States and Canadian 

 fishermen combined, averaged about 316,000 

 pounds for the 6-year period 1941-1946, plus what 

 fish may have been landed in Shelburne, Nova 

 Scotia, from Browns Bank. Even so, the Gulf 

 yields only about one-tenth as much halibut by 

 weight today as it did, say, 30 years ago. 68 



We dare not guess in what degree this continued 

 decrease has been a result of the progressive 

 replacement of long-line fishing by otter trawling, 

 of market conditions, or of a continuing decrease 

 in the numbers of halibut. 



Halibut may have maintained their numbers 

 somewhat better on the outer Nova Scotian 

 Banks and slopes, which yielded about 3,400,000 

 pounds in 1934 (with Browns Bank); about 

 1,350,000 pounds in 1946. 69 



In the early days of the fishery, halibut were 

 common in the Gulf of Maine in water no deeper 

 than they were farther north; near Anticosti in 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence for example, or near 

 Miquelon, south of Newfoundland, where many 

 were caught in 5 to 10 fathoms. 70 A case is on 

 record, for example, of a catch of 5 halibut, made 

 in 1849, on one set of a long line with only 37 



67 The otter trawlers that carried on investigations for the Bureau of Fish- 

 eries in 1913 took halibut on more than half their trips to Georges. Contrast 

 this with a catch of 570 halibut by a long-liner on a patch of rocky bottom there 

 in one day, in the early years of the Georges fisheryl 



a The Gulf of Maine catch was nearly 3 million pounds in 1919. 



•• Catch, Cape Sable to Cape Breton in 1946, about 50,000 pounds by United 

 States vessels, about 1,300,000 pounds by Canadian vessels. For a general 

 survey of the catches of halibut in both sides of the Atlantic, for 1934, see 

 Thompson and Van Cleve, Rept. No. 9, International Fisheries Commission, 

 1936, p. 21. 



'• Goode and Collins, Fish. tad. U. S., Sec. 5, vol. I, 1887, p. 17. 



hooks, in 7 fathoms, just off the mouth of Glouces- 

 ter Harbor. A good many, too, were caught in 

 those days on the southeastern part of Stellwagen 

 Bank, where the depth (on the fishing grounds) 

 ranges from 15 fathoms to about 30 fathoms. 

 And many were reported as wintering in the 

 gullies west of Stellwagen and between the latter 

 and the tip of Cape Cod, in depths of 30 to 50 

 fathoms. Similarly, the early fishery also on 

 Georges was on the shoaler parts of the bank in 

 depths of 15 to 30 fathoms. And the early 

 visitors to this ground describe the halibut, not 

 only as schooling at the surface in pursuit of 

 herring and launce (not an uncommon event in 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence and off Newfoundland 

 when they are chasing capelin), but as often 

 following their hooked companions up to the top 

 of the water, so that more than one vessel made 

 a good part of her fare by gaffing them alongside. 

 The Nantucket Shoals halibut of old were like- 

 wise in less than 30 fathoms depth, and when the 

 fleet first repaired to Browns Bank and to the 

 Seal Island grounds they found halibut very 

 plentiful in water but little deeper than that. 



In fact, it was not until 1874 or 1875 that the 

 presence of this fish was suspected in the deeper 

 gullies or on the offshore slopes of the banks below 

 100 fathoms. But it did not require many years 

 of hard fishing to catch most of the halibut that 

 were living in very shallow water, and so thoroughly 

 that very few are now taken shoaler than 25 to 

 40 fathoms in our Gulf, while most of the halibut 

 that are caught still on the offshore banks are 

 from water deeper than 75 fathoms. 



All that has come down to us as to any general 

 movements of the halibut in the Gidf of Maine 

 during the days of their plenty there, beyond the 

 prevailing tendency of the larger fish to work down 

 deeper than the smaller (p. 250), is that some of 

 them (though not all) worked inshore into shoaler 

 waters for the winter, to work offshore again and 

 deeper for the summer. But this offshore move- 

 ment in winter may not have extended far, or very 

 deep, if it was to avoid low temperatures, for hali- 

 but (or any other fish for that matter), that sum- 

 mer inshore in shoal water where they would be 

 most subject to winter chilling, need never move 

 out for more than 60 miles or so off any part of 

 the coast line of the open Gulf, nor descend deeper 

 than about 70 to 75 fathoms, to find water per- 

 manently warmer than 38°, except in the Bay of 



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