Most of this information is given in the his- 

 torical review of the shad fisheries of North 

 Annerica by Mansueti and Kolb (1953). 



FISHERIES BY WATER AREA 



It was unlawful in 1960 for the Commission 

 of Tidewater Fisheries to license the use of 

 any net or other devices for catching finfish for 

 commercial purposes in the tidal waters of 

 Maryland, except by pound nets, haul seines, 

 and fyke nets more than 40 yd. long and gill 

 nets more than 100 yd. long. The Commission 

 has the power to determine each year whether 

 additional licenses should be issued, basing 

 its judgment on the condition of the fisheries 

 as determined by statistical and biological 

 studies. The legal shad season was from 

 January 1 to June 5 in the tidal waters of 

 Maryland, and from March 1 to May 26 in 

 the Potomac River. 



In the present study, the amount of gear 

 fished includes only that fished for shad and 

 not the total amount licensed. The shad catch 

 by fyke nets, haul seines, and pound nets was, 

 in some instances, incidental to the catch of 

 other species; this fishing gear has not been 

 counted. 



Chesapeake Bay in Maryland 



Chesapeake Bay extends northward into 

 Maryland 120 miles and is 3 to 16 miles wide. 

 It covers an area of 976 square miles, but if 

 its numerous tributaries up to the limit of 

 tidewater are included, it covers 2,359 square 

 miles. Much of the water is less than 20 ft. 

 deep, but depths may exceed 150 ft. The 

 salinity of the water decreases from south to 

 north, and the water is fresh at the head of 

 the Bay. The Bay divides the State into the 

 eastern and western shores, each with a num- 

 ber of important shad streams. 



In describing the fishery of 1896, Stevenson 

 divided the Bay into two geographical sections. 

 The lower extended from the Virginia line to 

 Swan Point, near Rock Hall, Md., and the upper 

 included the remainder of the Bay. In the lower 

 section, the fishery outside the rivers was 

 comparatively small, and the gear was ex- 

 clusively pound nets and a few stake gill nets. 

 The catch by these nets was 589,368 lb., of 

 which 108,090 lb. were taken by fishernnen 

 living on the Eastern Shore and 481,278 lb. by 

 fishermen on the western side. The upper 

 section was the principal shad-producing 

 region of the Bay. The yield in 1896 was 

 1,185,224 lb., of which about 74 percent was 

 caught by drift gill nets, 11 percent by stake 

 gill nets, 10 percent by seines, and 5 percent 

 by pound nets. 



In 1896 pound nets in the lower Bay were 

 concentrated in Pocomoke Sound and below 

 the Little Annemessex River on the Eastern 



Shore; on the western side most were near the 

 mouth of the Patuxent River, between Holland 

 Point and Gibson Island. Most of these nets 

 were of the "single heart" type with 4-in. 

 mesh. 



Stake gill nets fished along the shore in 1896 

 from Tilghman Island to Kent Island took shad 

 almost entirely for local use. A few fish were 

 caught between the Chester and Choptank 

 Rivers in Eastern Bay. This Bay receives the 

 waters of the St. Michael, Wye, and smaller 

 rivers, but in 1896 only the St. Michael pro- 

 duced shad. 



The 1896 drift net fishery in the upper Bay 

 was the nnost productive on the Atlantic coast 

 south of Delaware Bay. The nets operated 

 fronn the mouth of the Susquehanna River to 

 Pooles Island in the Northeast River and in 

 the extreme lower portion of the Elk and 

 Sassafras Rivers. Nets were 150 to 400 yd. 

 long and had 5 1/4- to 5 l/2-in. mesh. Twenty- 

 five years before Stevenson's investigation, 

 stake gill nets were fished extensively in the 

 upper Bay, but they gradually gave way to the 

 more effective and less costly drift nets. The 

 stake gill net fishery was limited to the shore 

 of Kent County. These nets were about 25 yd. 

 long and 40 meshes deep and had 5 l/2-in. 

 mesh. Seines and pound nets were in the ex- 

 treme northern end of the Bay. 



In 1960 shad entered Maryland waters in 

 March, and the run continued into June. The 

 estimated catch in Chesapeake Bay was 

 1,018,309 lb., most of which was taken in the 

 upper central and northern portions. Because 

 of the different gears and the quantity of shad 

 taken, each section of the Bay is discussed 

 separately. The catch by water area is given 

 in Table 31. 



Chesapeake Bay. South .- -In 1960 the lower 

 portion of the Bay from the Virginia- Maryland 

 line to Cove Point, including Pocomoke Sound, 

 Honga River, and Tangier Sound, yielded 37,773 



Table 31. --Shad catch, by water area and gear. In Maryland watera 

 of Chesapeake Bay, 1960 



54 



