304 EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHEEIES. 



mou .have access now, visiting tlieui yearly and often showing them- 

 selves at Brownville on the Pleasant River. The Passadumkeag proba- 

 bly contains good breediug-gounds, but to a less extent than the Pis- 

 cataquis. They find suitable ground in some of the tributaries of the 

 Mattawamkeag, and in several small streams directly tributary to the 

 Penobscot. Three of the latter have received the name of " Salmon 

 Stream." In one of them which j6ius the Penobscot, a few miles above 

 Mattawamkeag, I have, myself, found the nests of salmon. 



Above the entrance of the Mattagamon the Main Penobscot, com- 

 monly called the West Branch, gradually changes its character, has less 

 gravel, larger bowlders and more ledge in its bottom, and the uniformity 

 of its current is interrupted by numerous falls and extensive lakes ; but 

 there is no serious natural obstacle to the ascent of salmon throughout 

 its entire length ; and the dams at iSTorth Twin and -Chesuncook do not 

 wholly prevent salmon reaching the upper waters. At both these dams 

 they are frequently seen and sometimes caught. One informant has 

 known of two instances, in a single spring, of salmon throwing them- 

 selves upon the piers at Chesuncook Dam, and being taken by the river- 

 men.* Of the tributaries of this part of the Penobscot, the Miliinocket, 

 Nahmakanta, Souadnehunk, Caribou, and Caucomgomoc Streams are 

 particularly well fitted to be the breeding-grounds of salmon. 



It is believed that the Mattagamon or East Branch is a better salmou- 

 river than the Main Penobscot, and that a much greater number of 

 salmon resort to it. They can ascend it as far as Grand Falls, thirty- 

 five miles from its mouth, and find extensive spawning-grounds not only 

 in the Mattagamon itself, but in the Wassaticook and Seboois Streams 

 and their tributaries. The Wassaticook is an impetuous mountain- 

 stream, draining the northern and eastern, sides of Mount Katahdiu. 

 The Seboois traverses a more level district, and is a very fine, gentle, 

 gravelly stream, with numerous rapids of suflicieut force to form ad- 

 mirable spawning-beds. In this stream and in the Mattagamon I have, 

 myself, seen many salmon-nests. 



The industrial modes of fishing employed in the Penobscot Bay and 

 river are three: first, drift-nets 5 second, pound-nets ; third, weirs. With 

 very few exceptions the use of each mode is confined to a particular dis- 

 trict. Drift-nets are used only in the swift water of the" river above the 

 flow of the tide ; pound-nets in the more open parts of the -bay ; weirs 

 in the tidal part of the river and the upper part of the bay. 



The drift-net is a simple straight net, buoyed on the upper, and 

 and weighted on the lower edge, which is thrown out from a boat and 

 allowed to float down the current, intercepting any upward-bound salmon 

 tliat may come in the way, and which are caught by thrusting their 



*Mr. Manly Hardy, of Brewer, is authority for this statement, as well as for nu- 

 merous others in relation to the Upper Penobscot. Mr. Hardy says that he knows of a 

 salmon, weighing half a pound, being taken on a fly-hook more than thirty miles above 

 Chesuncook in Sei^tember, 187L'. 



