FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 343 



Island. This may have been an early year. But pounds, caught in a herring weir at Grand Manan 



tuna are to be expected throughout the western during that October. 



side of the Gulf generally by the middle or end of The regional contrasts in local abundance 



June, which is about as early as they ordinarily within our Gulf may be illustrated for a repre- 



appear in any numbers off southern New England; sentative year by the reported catches of tuna by 



and they appear on the Nova Scotian side of the counties around the coast from southwest to 



Gulf by the first of July if not earlier. In 1950, northeast, for 1945. 



for example, upwards of 450 had been landed from Massachusetts: Pounds 



Ipswich Bay by July 31, the largest weighing 734 Barnstable (chiefly Cape Cod Bay) 301, 900 



pounds. 16 The peak season usually is from about Plymouth 600 



the middle or end of July to the middle of Sep- Essex 50,300 



tember off Massachusetts; July and August off Y ' . 



Casco Bay; through August and September along Cumberlandl 



western Nova Scotia. Sagadahoc J vicinity of Casco Bay 815 ' 300 



The vicinity of Provincetown, with Cape Cod Lincoln 900 



Bay, has long been known as a center of abund- £ nox (P enobscot Ba y) 



•", ^ , „, , Hancock . 



ance for tuna. Other well known centers are from Washington 



Cape Ann north to Boon Island and from the Nova Scotia: 



Ipswich Bay-Plum Island shore out to Jeffreys Annapolis 



Ledge some 30 miles off shore; off the mouth of Yarmouth 35,800 



Casco Bay and for some distance thence eastward ; Shelburne to Cape Sable 



and the vicinity of Wedgeport, on the west coast In most years the tuna that are seen and caught 



of Nova Scotia, where the International tuna near Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod, and 



matches are held. Fewer are seen along the in Cape Cod Bay, are small (so-called "school 



eastern coast of Maine, though we are told that fish" weighing less than 200 pounds with many 



a fishery for tuna has developed during the current as small as 30 to 70 pounds ; and few of those 



summer off Southwest Harbor, Mount Desert caught there in most years are large. The smallest 



Island, 17 and in the New Brunswick side of the reported in the inner part of the Gulf of Maine 



Bay of Fundy. was a run of 20- to 26-pound fish (2-year-olds) 



It is expecially interesting that there are so taken in Cape Cod Bay in October 1950. 20 And 



few tuna in the Passamaquoddy region in most good catches of "school" fish of 30-70 pounds, 



years that the capture of even an occasional fish Dut few larger, if any, are being made again off 



in the local weirs causes comment, for the astound- tne tip of Cape Cod around the shores of Cape 



ing abundance of small herring there would seem to Cod Bay at this writing (August 5, 1951), and 



offer them an inexhaustible supply of food. But have been for several weeks past. Large numbers 



a summer comes now and then when they are far of even smaller tuna, averaging about 11 pounds, 



more plentiful there than usual; thus Passama- have been encountered on the southwestern part 



quoddy waters are said to have "teemed with oi Georges Bank (p. 344), and many of these little 



tuna" in the summer of 1937 18 when as many as ones (from 8 pounds or so upwards) are caught 



7 were taken at Campobello in a single seining; off southern New England every summer and 



and several were reported again and a few caught autumn, especially near Block Island. 21 On the 



in Passamaquoddy Bay in the summer of 1945. 1B other hand, most of those found northward from 



Dr. Huntsman writes us that "schools" were Cape Ann, and in the Nova Scotian side of the 

 reported there in the summer of 1951, when the Gulf are large, few of them as small as 100 pounds, 

 water was warmer than usual. And Leslie Thus, the average live weights of 1,641 tuna that 

 Scattergood reports 22, ranging from 113 to 161 were landed at Portland, Maine, during the 

 period 1926 to 1935, varied between 495 pounds 



'• Reported by Henry Moore in the Boston Herald, July 31, 1950. » Reported by Frank Mather of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institu- 



ir Information supplied by Frank Mather, of the Woods Hole Oceano- tion. 



graphic Institution. « Frank Mather, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, reports 



» Atlantic Fisherman, vol. 18, No. 9, October 1937, p. 28. a catch of 110 of them, weighing about 10 pounds, off No Mans Land, on 



■• Atlantic Fisherman, vol. 26, No. 8, September 1945, p. 52. September 16, 1951. 



