80 SHAD risHf:i;Y COMMlslilOX 



eddy caused by a reef and sawdust settles there. On the flats it is two to four inches 

 deep and the fish which used to stay don't come now to feed there where there was 

 little current and they have now left it altogether. It might be a good thing to stop 

 fishing all along the shore for two or three years and thus hasten the re-storation. 

 Pollution is serious. At Londonderry mines heaps of stuff is placed on the land 

 alongside the bank, but too low. Also coal w.ishing has done harm to the fish. Almost 

 to Portaupiqiie, nine or ten miles below the place where it is put in you see the coal 

 dust. Formerly salmon were so thick you could almost catch them with your arms, 

 but this year hardly a salmon went up the river. Dynamite too has been used. If a 

 larger mesh were required in the salmon nets we could catch fewer fish, but 1 don't 

 think enough big fish to make it pay to fish. Big shad must go up, they go up the 

 south channel but we do not fish at the time they run. 



Captain Stewart Gould, Great Village, said that it was about 47 years since 

 he began to fish (it was in 1861). At that time shad were very plentiful and in one 

 night 1,200 to 1,800 to a boat was a common catch. The average size was 4 pounds, or 

 80 to a barrel, or 135 to 140 to a barrel salted; 150 would be an average. We used 

 much the same gill-nets as now, IS, 20 or 25 bunches to a boat. The mesh was 4i to 

 4 1 inches. I fished down at Bass river principally towards the ' Nest,' near Five 

 Islands, when I began. A reef of rocks there caused the fish to crowd in. I did not 

 fish after 1861 for 20 years, but went to sea. They had become much scarcer in the 

 interval and a man who got 100 or 200 to a night did well. The reason of the decline 

 was that the spawn shad in the Stewiacke and Shubenacadie rivers had been destroyed. 

 Also sawdust and dirt, edgings and bark, all had injured the grounds, and flats orig- 

 inally clean and sandy were quite black and the deposit had a very bad smell. Weir 

 fishing is injurious because it takes all kinds of fish, small and large, whereas the drift 

 nets give the small fish a chance. It is the proper method. The food of the shad is a 

 small bug. It is all legs below. Salmon feed on them also. We see lots of them on 

 the nets. The first-of-July shad, I think, do not go to spawn that season, whatever 

 they may do next season. I have seen spawn in shad very rarely, very slightly 

 developed. Early in the season I have had an occasional large Shubenacadie shad. 

 Shad after spawning or ' come-backs ' I have never seen in our fishing. I think that 

 the government should have a close season, as Mr. Hill suggested, but the taking of 

 salmon should be made uniform with the shad. Stop sjiring shad fishing. I have 

 handled the shad from six boats this season and they did not amount to more than one 

 hundred. Salmon run late of course if the water in the rivers is low. 



E. Fletcher Spencer, Spencer's Point, said he had fished 40 years and the fish- 

 insr has declined from thousands to fives. In the days of plenty spawn fish were not 

 fished at all, that (river) fisliing is of recent date and the fishery has fallen off on 

 account of that. When we began fishing this year the fish were exceedingly fat. I 

 opened the stomach and I am able to show you gentlemen of the commission the food. 

 (Witness hands an open package to the commission.) Now rotten wood or sawdust 

 spoils the feeding grounds. As it floats o\it to sea it then sinks and pools are filled 

 with it. Twenty-five or twenty-seven shad may be now taken at a tide, the best fishing 

 being with ebb tide at the commencement. It is so poor that the catch fell off to four 

 or five shad a week. The rivers have been ruined. Everybody throws rubbish, old tin 

 cans, &c., in, and coke waste has killed all the trout out and out. Such pollution turns 

 every fish out even if there be thousands. The government should be more strict about 

 polluting waters. Dynamite has been used for some years, and it was done on the 

 sly last year, the men coming from Springhill. Dynamite is terribly destructive on 

 fish, and off Xoel I saw the effect once. Several charges fired to raise a body (drown- 

 ing easel, the first two charges throwing the fish out close by, and any 30 or 40 feet 

 away were stunned, but those handy to the charge were dead. Twelve charges in all 

 were fired, but after the second charge there was not a fish left. Spawning shad 



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