400 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



Cobequid Bay region, at the head of the Bay of 

 Fundy for fishermen report taking them there 

 through October and into November. 97 



The question where the bass that visit the dif- 

 ferent parts of the coast of the Gulf of Maine spend 

 their winters still awaits a comprehensive answer. 

 It has long been known that the Chesapeake Bay 

 bass winter in the deeper channels near the head, 

 of the bay as well as in its estuaries, and in the lower 

 reaches of the rivers, in a more or less inactive state ; 

 also those of the New Jersey coast run up into 

 rivers to remain until the following spring, as 

 described more than a century ago by Mease. 98 



Knight 99 writes too, that as the weather becomes 

 colder, the bass of the southern side of the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence "penetrate into the bays and arms 

 of the sea and ascend the rivers at some distance, 

 where they spend the winter resting on the mud in 

 a half torpid state." The bass also, in Maine 

 "pass the winter in quiet bays and coves of fresh 

 water in the rivers," according to Atkins. 1 We see 

 no reason to doubt that the Bay of Fundy bass, 

 and also those that still frequent the Maine rivers 

 from the Penobscot westward, still follow this 

 habit. 



It has been known, also, for many years that 

 some bass winter in the Parker River, in northern 

 Massachusetts. In fact, some 8,700 pounds were 

 taken there during the financial depression of 1930 

 (p. 402). Local fishermen tell us also that a few 

 bass winter in the deeper parts of the North and 

 South Rivers in Marshfield, Mass., on the southern 

 side of Massachusetts Bay, apparently in salt water. 

 But these and other small streams do not seem 

 extensive enough to provide wintering grounds for 

 all the schools of bass that appear in summer be- 

 tween southern Maine and Boston Harbor in 

 reasonably good years. Neither is there anything 

 in the available record to suggest that the Merri- 

 mac ever was an important wintering ground. 

 And it is hardly conceivable that the multitude of 

 bass that sometimes frequent Cape Cod Bay and 

 the outer shore of the Cape in good bass years can 

 winter nearby (unless they do so offshore), there 

 being no large rivers along this section of the coast, 

 and no local report of bass in winter in the shallow, 

 partially enclosed bays there, or in the salt marshes. 



" Report by Henry Moore, Boston Herald for Aug. 28, 1950. 

 •» Tians. Litt. Phil. Soc. New York, vol. 1, 1815, pp. 502-504. 

 •• The River Fisheries of Nova Scotia, 1867, p. 12. 

 i Fish. Ind. U. S., Sect. 5, vol. 1, 1887, p. 693. 



It was generally believed until recently that the 

 great majority of bass that frequent the Massa- 

 chusetts coasts of the Gulf (and the Cape Cod 

 region in particular), and also those that summer 

 off southern Massachusetts and around the off- 

 lying islands, move westward along the shore in 

 autumn: some to contribute to the bodies of fish 

 that are known to winter in the rivers of Connecti- 

 cut and in the lower Hudson, and some to journey 

 perhaps as far as Chesapeake Bay; i. e., to the 

 region where many of them are hatched. The 

 capture, however, in 1949, of an 18-inch bass some 

 60 miles south of Marthas Vineyard in 70 fathoms 

 of water in February (p. 391) seems to favor the 

 view, now gaining favor among observant anglers, 

 that at least a part of the bass of the Cape Cod 

 region may only move offshore to winter on bottom 

 well out on the continental shelf in localities where 

 the otter trawlers do not ordinarily operate, as has 

 been found of late to be true of the summer floun- 

 der (p. 268). 



If true, this woidd mean that some of the Chesa- 

 peake-hatched bass that spread northward to 

 Massachusetts and Maine when 2 or 3 years old 

 may never return to their home waters. More 

 definite information in this regard is to be expected 

 from tagging experiments now in progress. 



Periodic fluctuations in abundance. — Nothing re- 

 garding bass is of greater interest to commercial 

 fishermen and to anglers than the great fluctua- 

 tions in its numbers that have taken place in our 

 Gulf within historic times. 



The bass was a familiar fish when New England 

 and the Maritime Provinces were first colonized, 

 all along the coast from Cape Cod to the Bay of 

 Fundy; plentiful and easy to capture, because of 

 its large size and its habit of coming into the 

 mouths of streams and creeks; it was also an im- 

 portant food supply for the early settlers. 



Wood, 2 for example, tells us that in what is now 

 a part of Boston Harbor: 



The basse is one of the best fishes in the country, and 

 though men are soon wearied with other fish, yet are they 

 never with basse. It is a delicate, fine, fat, fast fish, having 

 a bone in his head which contains a saucerfull of marrow 

 sweet and good, pleasant to the pallat and wholesome to 

 the stomach ... Of these fishes some be three and four 

 foote long, some bigger, some lesser; at some tides a man 

 may catch a dozen or twenty of these in three hours . . . 

 When they use to tide in and out of the rivers and creekes 

 the English at the top of an high water do crosse the creekea 



' New Englands Prospect, 1634, p. 37. 



