American Fisheries Society 115 



Connecticut. Do you feel the temperature in the ri\ er is an im- 

 portant factor in determining- the nnmber of shad that run in? 



Mr. Mathewson: We have, of course, felt the pollution has 

 been a great factor. We don't know exactly what to lay it to, 

 entirely. We think that the pound nets at the mouth of the 

 river are destroying more of our shad. 



It doesn't give them a chance to come up in the river and 

 propagate. We have not been able to get any legislation to get 

 them out of the way. Our river fishing pound men are working 

 seven days a week, and catch everything before they can get into 

 the river to propagate. Then, we think the Enfield river has 

 been a great factor in reducing the number of our shad. We 

 don't get lots of them. The only place we have now, practically, 

 to get shad, is on the Farming-ton river, in Connecticut. Of 

 course we think pollution is a great factor. 



President : You feel that your Delaware shad would get past 

 those pound nets? 



Mr. ]\Iee]ian : We have no pound nets in the Delaware river. 



President : I mean, the gill net in the bay. 



Mr. Meehan : Some of them get Ijy, because we catch them 

 in large quantities above; but undoubtedly they take a great 

 many fish. How many, we haven't quite the means of knowing, 

 because those men don't make the returns to us, the same a- 

 other fishermen are willing to do. They seem to like to conceal 

 it, push them off to this market and that market, and we have 

 no opportunity of finding out how many they do catch. They 

 are of enormous size. The fish get through the pollution. Of 

 course there is no doubt in my mind that it is an enormous 

 factor. My figures here have been borne out by the United 

 States commission. I received a letter from Washington a few 

 weeks ago. They asked me if I would not make a statement 

 as to the character of the work and so on, and they write on the 

 same line, that they have taken an increased number of eg?s, 

 and an increased number of fish in the other rivers, Susque- 

 hanna and Potomac, and the rivers southward, — an increased 

 number of eggs have been taken, but the increase has not been 



