34 SBAD FISHERY COMUISSIOy 



with the last witness (Mr. Card). Sawdust is filling the rivers and killing the shad. 

 Almost 30 miles are covered with sawdust from the mills to the eastern bar. The 

 mills on the Keuneteook are : (1) Clarksville, two mills, Bentley's and Campbell's; 

 (2) ilary Ann Brook, mill : (3) Dodridge's two mills, Dodd & Allon and D. AUon ;' 

 (4) Zwicker's one mill, above Kennetcook. I have seen shad with gills full of sawdust. 

 Lacy Brook used to be a grand trout stream, but sawdust has destroyed it. I don't 

 think it kills salmon, but it has driven them out of Kennetcook river; Simpson's 

 Hole, where they spawned is now all sawdust. We have got salmon up to 17 pounds. 

 I say stop the killing of spawn shad. The Shubenacadie men ship them to Truro, 

 &c. I have seen a 10 ijound spawn shad caught in Kennetcook river at Stanley below 

 Clarksville. A five pound salmon will tear our shad net. Xets are torn to pieces by 

 salmon. The weekly close time, Friday night to Monday morning, is generally 

 observed. I may say that I have known big catches of shad, as 1,100 to a boat, in one 

 night at 'Walton. 



Jonx Spencer, •Windsor, fisherman, said he used drift nets only and his catches 

 were shad, salmon, cod, and a few bass. He used l-inch mesh to 5-inch. At first when 

 IT or IS years of age he got lots of fish with short nets. Only 50 to 70 fathoms used 

 40 years ago. Ten years later longer nets, 200 fathoms (1,200 yards, 300 on the rope) 

 used, but some still use the shorter nets. A boat and its net is $150 to $175 in value. 

 A fine net lasts a year. We use boiled oil on our nets. I never got a spawn shad. 

 W<> fish from 18th or 20th June on. Because of floating sawdust and sawdust on the 

 feeding grounds on August 15, one season we got no fishing, so went to Kiugsport and 

 got good shad fishing. The causes of injury are, in my opinion : — the killing of imma- 

 ti re fish, including hundreds of small salmon. Everything is stopped by the seines. 

 They cover very long pieces of the flats. About the middle of July small salmon were 

 seen in the mill creek brush weir below Lepreau, between Kiugsport and Blomidon. 

 T'ley were 4 or 5 inches long. Also a number of very small silvery fish 2 to 5 inches 

 long, probably the fry of hake. The weir had no opening or gate. Sawdust is most 

 serious. Drift nets have decreased as the fish declined and now there are only seven 

 or eight boats here, but formerly twenty boats. I never fished for gaspereau, but the 

 e:irly fishing would take spawn shad if they were here. I had never seen any spawn 

 shad in my fishing. 



Robert Redden, Wixdsou. As a fisherman he had had 34 years experience in 

 Minas basin, Cobequid and St. Mary's bays, and had taken shad, salmon, gaspereau, 

 ccd. haddock, hake and occasional halibut. He fished gill net and hand lines. In 1S97 

 as the shad had dropped out, I and Layton with two boats from Windsor went to St. 

 Mi'.ry's bay. We got 670 shad on a 100 fathom net (100 fathoms on the rope) and had 

 only got three shad here the day I left. 1898 was a fairly good year, but the season 

 was short and the total catch in the river was 120 to 130, but round the Miaas bay. 

 Hog Back, bay, 470 fish were got. The fish stayed in St. Mary's bay only three or four 

 days and boats up the head of the bay got none, only three or four to a drift. We 

 used 220 fathoms of net. In Cobequid bay they use 100 fathoms, i.e., 100 fathoms of 

 tv>-ine. We never use more than 200 fathoms because a longer net than that would 

 cross the tide, but up the bay they fish 30 bunches 600 fathoms. In April spawn shad 

 come up. We had weirs near Falmouth but we never got a shad' in spring. At Avon- 

 port they got a few, two or three in spring. Last April we saw some shad full of spawn 

 from the Shubenacadie and Henry McDougal said that one man in 40 fathoms of net 

 got 160 of these spawn fish. Shad have not been kept out by increased traffic or noises, 

 as the Hudson river proves. In St. Mary's bay you can see the shad moving in clear 

 water in schools. In latter part of ilay small shad 4 or 5 inches long are got in the 

 seines in which a mesh of 2 or 3 inches is used inside the seine. I saw two shad the 

 other day on a drift, one being large and fat but the other poor, thin and' bony with a 

 big head and no body; its stomach was swelled with a teaspoonfull of sawdust. I 



