IXTERIM REPOllT 45 



at all. They are swollen with roe, two organs at the sides. I used to fish with a sal- 

 uiou net for shad 5 J. inches shrunk to 5 inches. Our catches would be fifty in a nigh% 

 often three to five only. The first run were the biggest and were going up to spawn 

 but some had spawned or were without spawn. I never kept record of the season'.s 

 catch. After the shnd the sabnon ascend. As to small shad I saw them three inches 

 long go down in the fall, the big freshets at that time left them on the grass banks. 

 I used them for bait, setting mink traps in October. There are too many people fish- 

 ing especially up at Milford, and they are not particular about their nets. We have 

 all short nets here, but they use nets, some of them 100 to 200 feet long, but 30 feet 

 should be the maximum. So many are fishing that salmon can't get up, as one says, 

 ' I've as good a right as him to set a net,' and many are not very particular as to long 

 nets. The officer used to patrol, but we deceived him by setting a stake in the river 

 at the right placse. You may restore the fish and get them back, but you won't keep 

 them long, that's the trouble with our fishing, viz. : too long nets, and fishing all the 

 time. Xone of the men ever depended on fishing, they all had farms. Some might go 

 round with a car-load of fish selling them in the morning after fishing, but we could 

 never catch fish like that here. It is fresh water above and the fish would stay there 

 in deep holes and they would be caught. Down the river nets are too long they spoil 

 our fishing here. I never hear of catches worth anything and I'd hear if there were 

 any. .For two or three years we have never got a shad in our gaspereau nets, but form- 

 erly we did get a few. There are no dams between here and Grand Lake, but in the small 

 streams both dams and sawdust, and shad are injured. The fish that go up the Ste- 

 wiacke do not belong to this river. Up there I heard of dead shad being found among 

 the logs. Wlien the water is low the logs are on the bottom. Shad can't go through 

 streams both dams and sawdust, and shad are injured. The fish that go up the Ste- 

 wiacke, and the biggest catch of shad was below a jam, and the people pitch- 

 forked them out. At Milford, the bottom is sand and gravel, not much mud 

 there. We sold the shad whole at 10 cents each first, we'd sell them for more 

 up river. Last summer I caught nothing so I stopped. The bay shad are 

 better than ours, being fatter but not so big. Striped bass are irregular, every 

 five or sis years they come but not every season. They are four or five pounds weight. 

 In the close time plenty come, schools of 100 rolling and plajang half a mile down tho 

 river very rarely above Benjamin's mill. They spawn all over the river and up St. 

 Andrews river or Brook. Too many nets are used, any amount of them in the non- 

 tidal portion up there above Milford. We set nets at dark and lift them in an hour 

 or so or take them out at daylight. The !Noel ' summer ' shad rarely get into the 

 river i.e., the ' Bay ' shad. It is pretty bad we can't get a fish here because of the Innj? 

 nets below. We notice that the big salmon come up first and they run larger than 

 they used to do. Three or four years ago one got 23 pounds weight. He did not mesh 

 an he could not in the 5 inch mesh. For big fish six or seven inch mesh is rieht, anrt 

 a Kood many get clear, they cannot mesh. 



Robert Gass said that his experience exceeded oO year.<. ^^<ml\ catciies of shad 

 are made here, drift neta beiug used. Shad run four or five pounds or even larger. 

 One boat may take 300 shad in a night, but they have fallen off probably not a third 

 of former takes now secured, ilc.st of the catches are sold locally, fanners buying 

 them for their own use. The former price was 8 cents or 10 cents and two big 

 ones for 25 cents, but they are 25 cents each now. There is not the demand for roe shad 

 that there is in the L'nited States. We see both sexes of shad, but most of them 

 are female. The shad's worst enemy is the fisherman. There may be a case or two 

 of sawdust, but little trouble on that account exists now. The close season should 

 be enforced to give the fish a chance. It would be no liardship, as it does not pay now 

 and no man depends on fishing. Every farmer formerly had rigs, but only two now 

 fitted out for fishing. There is no impediment to the ascent of shad from the mouth to 

 Grand lake. Eels are plentiful, and they are speared in winter. Two or three years 



3494— 7i 



