264 U. S. BUREAU OP FISHERIES 



most of their landings are concentrated during the bright-night 

 periods. In 1930 the bright nights were from April 10 to 18 and 

 May 4 to 12, preventing the seiners from fishing at the beginning 

 and the end of the normal southern fishery. 



Fifty-one vessels went south for this fishery, 22 fishing regularly 

 from April 19 to May 29. Altogether the seining fleet landed 3,341,- 

 362 poimds as compared with 3,233,521 pounds in the previous year. 



Netters operated in this area from April 9 to June 6, 40 vessels 

 fishing regularly. Together with 11 other vessels, they caught 

 3,874,147 pounds as compared with 2,952,938 pounds in 1929. Doubt- 

 less the netter catch would have been larger had it not been for bad 

 weather in the early days of the season. 



Block Island fishery. — This includes the operations off southern 

 New England between longitude 72° W., and a line drawn 145° from 

 true north from Sankaty Head, Nantucket. 



Most of the seining took place in this area between May 19 and 

 June 24 with a few vessels continuing as late as July 9. During this 

 period 53 vessels fished regularly while 24 others participated part of 

 the time. With seining continuing longer than usual, the catch aggre- 

 gated 8,309,180 pounds as compared with 3,004,270 pounds in 1929. 



During the summer, especially the latter part when mackerel were 

 scarce, six more trips totaling 74,820 pounds were landed from this 

 area. 



Netters, from May 12 to June 7, with a few continuing to June 25, 

 caught 227,174 pounds in this area as compared with 246,860 in the 

 previous year. 



Gulj of Maine. — This region includes all of the waters from Nan- 

 tucket Shoals to Nova Scotia. Most of the mackerel seining was 

 done in the offing of Cape Cod and in Massachusetts Bay. Some 

 mackerel were caught from Thatchers Island north to Monhegan, 

 Me., but the fishing to the northward was not particularly good. 



Most of the seiners shifted their fishing operations from the Block 

 Island region to the Gulf of Maine about June 22, but a few trips 

 were made as early as May 30. 



There was an exceptionally good run of large and medium mackerel 

 during the latter part of June and up to the end of July, but thereafter 

 the fishing became poor and most of the landings consisted of small 

 fish. 



Due to the dearth of mackerel and unusually bad weather many of 

 the seiners pulled out of the fishery during October, only a few landing 

 trips during the latter half of the month. There were 98 seiners 

 fishing in this region, 65 of them continuing regularly during most of 

 the season. Up to July 31 the catch was ahead of the previous year, 

 but as a result of the decrease which occurred during the late summer 

 the seine catch was 26,137,851 pounds as compared with 35,072,022 

 in 1929. 



During the month of June, nine netters caught 138,290 pounds 

 compared to 165,312 pounds during the equivalent period the previous 

 year. 



The fall netting season lasted from about the middle of October to 

 the middle of December with the catch very light during the last 

 several weeks; 75 vessels, of which 52 fished regularly, landed 993,461 

 pounds as compared with 566,712 the previous year. 



