FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



397 



caught up to 26 pounds, and that a few were being 

 taken daily, in late June 1951. 65 Nearly as many 

 were taken in the Sheepscot, formerly, as in the 

 Kennebec; the present condition is not known. 68 

 There were bass in the St. George during the period 

 1936-1940; doubtless there are some there still, 

 for we heard of some in the surf near Georgetown, 

 Maine, in August 1951. 



Bass are seen in most years in Bangor Pool at 

 the head of the estuary of the Penobscot, where 

 some are caught by anglers casting especially for 

 them, also by salmon fishermen. And many in 

 the 2- to 4-pound class were reported and caught 

 in the Belfast River and in Searsport Harbor 

 farther down Penobscot Bay in 1938. But there 

 have not been enough of them there during the 

 past few years to have caused special comment. 

 Stripers were seen in the tide rips in the narrows 

 between Mount Desert Island and the mainland 

 (near the Hancock-Sullivan Bridge) in August 

 1951, and others were reported driving squid 

 ashore near Winter Harbor, Maine, a few miles 

 farther east. Salmon fishermen sometimes "rise" 

 bass in the Narraguagus, and Atkins 67 speaks of 

 "a very few" in the St. Croix, though Huntsman 

 found no recent record of bass in the Passama- 

 quoddy region. 



There may be an occasional bass in Maine rivers 

 other than those we have mentioned, but there is 

 nothing in the past record to suggest that there 

 ever were many. In 1880, for example, the re- 

 ported catch was nearly as great for the Kennebec 

 (about 13,000 pounds) as for all the other rivers 

 and coast of Maine combined (about 15,000 

 pounds). And there is no reason to suppose that 

 the regional contrast has altered subsequently in 

 this respect. 68 In the Bay of Fundy region, bass, 

 as Huntsman has pointed out, 69 are confined to 

 the large warm estuaries and the neighboring 

 fresh water; i. e., to those of the St. John, Minas 

 Basin-Cobequid Bay and Shubenacadie River 

 systems, and of the Annapolis. 



Available information suggests that bass always 

 were more plentiful in St. John River waters than 



anywhere along the eastern part of the coast of 

 Maine, and that they are still. Bass are occa- 

 sionally caught in St. John Harbor, mostly between 

 April and June. 70 And while they were reported 

 as already much less numerous in St. John waters 

 by 1884 than they had been in earlier times, 71 

 there still are enough of them in the St. John and 

 its tributaries to have yielded commercial catches 

 of 12,200 pounds in 1944, and 7,400 pounds in 

 1946. The most recent news that has reached us 

 from the St. John is that salmon fishermen saw a 

 school at the surface and caught some that weighed 

 3 to 11 pounds in late June or early July of 1951. 72 



Bass are well known in the Minas Basin- 

 Cobequid region. According to local fishermen, 73 

 as many as 80 fish are sometimes taken in weirs 

 there in a day, most of them in the 8- to 10-pound 

 category, but with occasional fish reported up to 

 33 pounds. 



The status of the bass is especially interesting 

 in the Shubenacadie River, for they are not only 

 caught in fresh water there and in Shubenacadie 

 Lake where they are known to spawn, but some 

 large fish remain throughout the year in the lake; 

 i.e., they behave like a land-locked population. 74 

 A thousand or so, in fact, are caught yearly by 

 anglers in the Lake and in the Shubenacadie 

 River; 76 and it is said that fish as large as 50 pounds 

 have been taken, 76 though most of them run small 

 there. 



We are informed 77 that the catch by anglers 

 was about 620 bass (average about 4% pounds) 

 in the Bass River, tributary to Cobequid Bay in 

 1950, and that the catches for 1949 and 1950 

 combined were about 1,350 fish (average about 

 2% pounds) in the Gaspereau, tributary to Minas 

 basin; 4,650 fish (average about 5% pounds) in the 

 Annapolis River; and about 125 fish (average 

 6 pounds) in the Bear River, tributary to Digby 

 basin, in 1950. It is interesting, that these fish 

 ran so small, for the bass caught in Cape Cod and 

 northern Massachusetts waters during these same 



** Reported in Saltwater Sportsman for October 6, 1950. 



M Yearly catch about 1880, some 8,000 pounds in the Sheepscot according 

 to Atkins, Fish. Ind. U. S., Sect. 5, vol. 1, 18S7, p. 716. 



" Atkins (Fish. Ind. U. S., Sect. 6, vol. 1, 1887, p. 700) reports one of 20 

 pounds, taken in the St. Croix in a weir in 1880. 



M What few bass were reported from Maine in 1919 were from the Kennebec 

 (592 pounds) and from Penobscot waters (57 pounds); bass have not been 

 Included in the fisheries statistics for Maine for any subsequent years. 



« Contrib. Canadian Biol. (1921) 1922, p. 63. 



70 Information from Dr. A. H. Leim. 



» Ooode, Fish. Ind. U. 8., Sect. 1, 1884, p. 425. 



'• Saltwater Sportsman for July 6, 1951. 



» According to Moore, Boston Herald, August 28, 1950. 



" Information from Dr. A. H. Leim. 



'• According to Huntsman, Ann. Rept. Fishery Board Canada, (1949) 

 1950, p. 41. 



'• Vladykov and McKenzie, Proc. Nova Scotia Inst. Sci., vol. 19, 1935, 

 p. 91. 



" Information from MaJ. Howard Scott of the Fishery Division of the 

 Nova Scotian Department of Trade and Industry, received through Henry 

 Lyman. 



