15(] REPORT OF COMMISSIONPiR OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



J)uiiii.U' Ai>ril, IS'JO, youii<;' cod mciisurin^' IVoin 1 [ to 2 inches long, 

 Averc very plentiful all along the shores, and were taken by ]\Ii'. Ed- 

 wards in his small collecting seine. The latter part of the month they 

 liad entered Woods Holl harbor and had become common around the 

 wharves. In May large fish, weighing from 5 to 1 5 pounds apiece, made 

 their appearance in these waters in very large numbers, and were 

 abundant in Tkizzards Bay from Cuttyhunk to (Juisset, and in Vineyard 

 Sound from Kobinson Iloll to Falmouth Heights. The fishermen caught 

 them in their fish traps, and they also entered the h)bster i)ots, some- 

 thing previously unheard of. A small funnel-shaped bass trap set on 

 the shore off Nonamessett Island caught 23 of these large cod on May 

 3, 15 on the 5th, and 8 on the Cth of the same month. They were the 

 first cod ever taken in that h^cality. From the latter part of October 

 until the end of November, 1890, fish of good size were abundant 

 throughout Vineyard Sound and Buzzards Bay and in the neighboring 

 regions. October 31, Mr. Edwards reported that since the 20th of the 

 month all the tautog fishermen in the sound and bay had been catch- 

 ing codfish every day, measuring from 15 to 20 inches long. On No- 

 vember 18, he stated that individuals weighing from 5 to 10 pounds 

 ea(di were very plentiful in Vineyard Sound, and also occurred in Buz 

 zards Bay. They Avere also said to be abundant at the sanu' time on 

 Nantucket Shoals and off XI ape Cod. During the latter part of the 

 month the boats were obtaining from 75 to 90 good-sized cod at each 

 tide off" the mouth of Edgartown Harbor, and sometimes as many as 100 

 off' Nantucket Bar. There is no record of this species having been cap- 

 tured i)reviously in either of these localities. On April 30, 1891, Mr. 

 Edwards reported that codfish were more abundant in the Vineyard 

 Sound region than they had been for thirty-five or forty years, and some 

 of them were of large size. 



On Novembier 24, 1890, Mr. Willard Nye, of NeAV Bedford, Mass., re- 

 ])orted that during the same fall codlisli had been more numerous than 

 for many years in the shoal waters at the mouth of Buzzards Bay and 

 to the westward. They have been caught, he states, in the traps from 

 Salter Point ofi' Nariagansettlliver, liuzzards Bay, as far to the west as 

 Seaconnet Point, and at many places inside of Buzzards Bay, which is 

 something new even to the oldest inhabitant. The fish taken in shoal 

 Avater are of two sizes, one aA^eraging about!, the other about ])ounds, 

 each. Tliey are both school cod and do not luiAe the red color of the 

 so-called rock-cod, stragglers of Avhich are caught every year in shallow 

 Avater. (3od fishing in Buzzards Bay has been a rarity for a great many 

 years. 



On December 3, 1890, Mr. George A. Griflin, wrote from Wakefield, 

 K. I., to the ette(;t that codlish had been very plentiful during the fall 

 ofiNarragansett Pier and Point Judith. They had Ibrmerly l)een abun- 

 dant there, but have been very scarce during the past 20 years. 



