FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



421 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — The center of 

 abundance for the weakfish is along the coast of 

 the middle Atlantic States from the Virginia Capes 

 to New York. It also occurs regularly as far 

 north and east as Cape Cod. But the stock of 

 weakfish fluctuates widely on the southern New 

 England coast, and it is only during periods of 

 great abundance there that weakfish appear in any 

 numbers in Cape Cod and Massachusetts Bays, 

 which may be set as the extreme northern limit 

 for its appearance except as a stray. In the years 

 when it has passed Cape Cod in appreciable num- 

 bers it has always been far more plentiful along 

 the inner side of the Cape and in Cape Cod Bay 

 than north of Boston, as appears from the following 

 statement of catches for 1906, a year of great 

 abundance. 



Cape Cod Bay: Pounds 



Provincetown 115, 789 



Truro 202, 050 



Brewster 137, 659 



Sandwich 6, 221 



North Shore of Massachusetts Bay: 



Nahant so 369 



Manchester 410 



Only once, however, for a period of about 

 9 years, have there been many weakfish during 

 the past century and a half, even in the Cape Cod 

 Bay region. 81 Apparently they were plentiful off 

 southern New England during the last part of the 

 eighteenth century, and to judge from fishermen's 

 reports weakfish were well known in Massachusetts 

 Bay at that time. But they vanished so com- 

 pletely sometime prior to 1800 that when a stray 

 specimen was taken at Provincetown in June 1838, 

 it was sent to Boston for identification. And this 

 disappearance evidently involved the whole north- 

 ern part of the range of the species, for weakfish 

 vanished similarly from the Nantucket-Marthas 

 Vineyard region sometime between 1800 and 

 1837. They had reappeared, however, off south- 

 ern Massachusetts by 1867; they were abundant 

 there, once more, by 1870; and one or two were 

 taken off Truro and Provincetown in 1884. 

 From then on until 1895, a few were returned 

 yearly from Truro, Provincetown, Plymouth, and 

 even from as far north as Gloucester and Man- 



chester, the annual catch ranging from an odd 

 fish only (e. g., 1893 and 1894) to 700 or 800 

 pounds, at most, for Cape Cod Bay and for the 

 northern part of Massachusetts Bay, combined. 



The catch in the Cape Cod Bay-Massachusetts 

 Bay region was larger for the next few years 

 (4,892 pounds in 1896, 82 1,006 pounds in 1897, 

 6,046 pounds in 1898, and 11,572 pounds in 1899), 

 though with the catches localized chiefly on the 

 outer side of Cape Cod and in Cape Cod Bay, as 

 might be expected of a stray from the south. And 

 they appeared in such numbers in Cape Cod Bay 

 in 1900 that the catch there jumped to upward 

 of 108,000 pounds for that year, 83 while a few 

 were taken even as far north as Boston Harbor 

 and Gloucester. 



This marked the commencement of a period 

 of local abundance, which was entirely unexpected 

 (for nothing like it had been experienced since 

 the settlement of the country), and which (with 

 its equally sudden eclipse) is perhaps the most 

 interesting event in the history of the local 

 fisheries. Unfortunately definite statistics of the 

 catches are not available for the crucial years, but 

 weakfish were so plentiful in Cape Cod Bay in 

 1901 as to be a drug on the market; while in 1902 

 and 1903 the pound nets in Cape Cod Bay were 

 often filled with schools of large weakfish, averag- 

 ing about 5 pounds. So plentiful were they, 

 indeed, during the summer of 1903 that the traps 

 at North Truro alone reported 280,000 pounds. 



This abundance continued through 1904, by 

 which time it seems to have been accepted as the 

 normal condition of affairs, and no longer worth 

 comment. But it seems to have culminated in 

 that summer or the next, for weakfish were 

 reported as less plentiful in 1906. Nevertheless, 

 the Cape Cod Bay traps (excluding Barnstable, 

 Chatham, Yarmouth, and Dennis) reported almost 

 half a million pounds of weakfish for that year; 

 the North Shore of Massachusetts Bay, 20,779 

 pounds, which probably was not more than half 

 or two-thirds of the actual total, for the returns 

 were incomplete. This, however, was the last 

 big year, for the catch north of the elbow of Cape 

 Cod was less than one-third as great in 1907 as 



10 Twenty thousand pounds were also reported from Gloucester, but we 

 have reason to believe that the fish were actually caught in Cape Cod Bay; 

 and traps operated at Rockport and at Newburyport took no weakfish. 



«> There are intimations in the writings of the early historians of New 

 England of similar disappearances and returns of the weakfish (Goode, Fish. 

 Ind. U. 8., Sect. 1, 1884, p. 363). 



" Omitting the towns of Yarmouth, Dennis, Chatham, and Barnstable, 

 where traps have been operated on the Vineyard Sound shore as well as on 

 the Gulf of Maine shore line. 



« Omitting the towns of Yarmouth, Dennis, Chatham, and Barnstable, 

 where traps have been operated on the Vineyard Sound as well as on the 

 Cape Cod Bay side. 



