STATISTICS OF NORTH AMERICAN HADDOCK FISHERY 39 



The distribution of the catch within the areas for which it is 

 recorded — for example, on different parts of the same banks — is not 

 reliable. As the chart is on Mercator's projection the areas to the 

 south are represented on a slightly smaller scale, and the catch 

 appears more concentrated than is the case to the north. 



CATCH 



The more important features of the distribution may be seen in 

 the chart (fig. 2). The greatest catch is made in the neighborhood 

 of the South Channel, extending over Georges Bank on the east and 

 to Cape Cod on the west. West of Cape Cod only very small catches 

 are made, extending to Cape May. In the Gulf of Maine consider- 

 able catches are made inshore along the entire coast. Large catches 

 are made on the south shore of the Bay of Fundy near the mouth, 

 but they decrease markedly toward the head of the bay ; on the north 

 shore there is no commercial catch east of St. John. 



Fair catches are made along the entire coast of Nova, Scotia from 

 Cape Sable to Cape North, Cape Breton, with large catches in the 

 vicinity of Canso and Ingonish, where haddock are taken in trap 

 nets. Large catches are made on the banks off this coast, particularly 

 Browns, Western, and Quereau Banks. 



In the Gulf of St- Lawrence, with the exception of a fair catch 

 on the Cape Breton coast, only very small catches are made in spite 

 of a great deal of line and trap-net fishing for cod. These small 

 catches extend throughout Magdalen Bay. The very small catches 

 elsewhere in the gulf are not mentioned in the statistics. 



On the banks south and east of Newfoundland very small catches 

 are made by United States vessels. The French catch on Newfound- 

 land Bank (including all French catches in North American waters) 

 is very small — about 200.000 pounds annually. Records of Canadian, 

 Newfoundland, and Portuguese catches in this area are not available, 

 but they are probably small. They are estimated at not over 600,000 

 pounds, but their amount and distribution are very uncertain. 



It must be remembered that the chart shows the catches and not 

 the abundance of the haddock. The presence of a large haddock 

 catch is indicative of the abundance of haddock, but the relative 

 abundance at various places can not be judged safely from the 

 catches. The absence of a haddock catch has significance only where 

 a fishery exists using gear that will catch haddock. 



SUMMABY 



1. The total haddock catches in North American waters since 1880 

 are summarized in Table 4 and Figure 1. The total catch has shown 

 an increase from about 100,000,000 pounds in 1900 to about 214,- 

 000,000 pounds in 1927. 



2. The postwar depression of the catch was relatively small in the 

 United States. In Canada the decrease from 78,000,000 pounds in 

 1917 to 27,000,000 pounds in 1921 was due apparently to economic 

 factors. It was most marked in the offshore fishery but also very 

 general inshore. 



3. The inshore and offshore catches are given for the United States 

 in Table 1 and for Canada in Table 3. The increasing total haddock 



