INTERIM REPORT 69 



very different looking fish on the wharf the other day, taken in the traps. The shad 

 here inaj- spawn in Gaspereau brook and the head of Dover bay. I have got 15 or 20 

 shad close inshore, taking them in the drag seine for ga.?pereau and for June mackerel- 

 The seine is 140 or 150 fathoms long. Often wo get salmon too, generally one moving 

 r.lcng by himself. This spring a 28 pound salmon was taken with fre.-'h herring bait 

 on a haddock trawl. We took three salmon this season, one 17 pounds weight; we 

 gaffed as it went by near the surface; one was got on the salmon net and the other 

 was on a haddock trawl. Occasionally wo got a very fat shad in the fall. The gas- 

 pereau are fat in the fall and worth eating then, but in spring are poor. We got them 

 in the mackerel nets, and in the fall I would prefer a fat gaspereau to a mackerel. 



Clem Whitsiax, of the firm of A. X. Whitman & Sons, fish merchants, Canso, 

 -aid that shad were not regular, and were of small importance in the local fisheries. 

 Eighteen hundred pounds were caught in 1905 in the haddock nets in [May. They 

 appeared to be coming from Cape Breton. We paid the fishermen 5c. per pound for 

 them. They were four or five pounds each. Those we got were probably only part 

 of the total local catch. Some Montreal fish firms got news of the take of shad and 

 at once bought them up eagerly. We sold them for 7c. or more. In June, 1905, we 

 got a few, 26 pounds total weight. 



Eighteenth Sitting. 



Drill Hall, Middletox, N.S., August 26, 1908. 



There was a large attendance when Prof. Prince opened the sitting by a short 

 address from Mr. S. F. Morrison. Evidence was taken as follows: — 



Mr. Sydenham Howe said that 18 years ago a man could get 170 shad in one net 

 in the Annapolis river, but no one got a higher catch than 30, say three to sis years 

 ago, and for two years no one's catch was more than 10 shad. I have seen very few 

 shad playing about in the river as they used to do towards evening. They used to 

 l:e taken at the mouth of the Nictaux river from the end of May to the 15th of June. 

 The water was too high before May 15. They go up both rivers, and I have seen 

 them one mile from the month of the river, but old people said they 'went a long way 

 up. ISTo doubt dams and sawdust have stopped them. There was a two years" pro- 

 hibition, and no nets were supposed to be set, but nets were still set. The Annapolis 

 river is full of nets- Some are set right across the river, i.e.. fixed gill nets. The 

 shad spawn a mile or more from the mouth. It is a beautiful salmon river, with good 

 pools, and the upper part. I am told, is very good. The Nictau.x salmon are very 

 gamey, but not large; few exceed 10 pounds. This year one salmon ISi pounds was 

 taken by fly. In the Annapolis river a salmon of 22 pounds was taken in an illegal 

 net. With very little trouble it could bo made a famous river, as Americans inquire 

 very much as to where salmon fishing can be got. They pass this district to go to 

 Newfoundland, giving us the go-by. Ono I'nited State? angler brought $100 and 

 another United States sportsman nearly as much. The best class of sportsman would 

 be brought here with their families. It is no great deprivation for our people to not 

 get a few salmon which the anglers would take; local people don't eat much fish. It 

 is shipped away. Not more than .30 fish taken by fly in a season from Laurencetown 

 up to Nictaux falls, but five times that number must have been netted, at a low esti- 

 mate. At I.equille they dip them, and at Roundhill. where they have throe day 

 given them for dipping. I hear that drift nets are used in the tide waters. On 



