70 SHAD FISHERY COMMISSIOy 



account of the dams tlicro can be no success v.ith eflbrts to stock the river with ivy. 

 There should be a better patrol, as now, two men are supposed to watch from Paradise 

 to Kingston, the county line, and Nictaux is the same. Salmon are dipped when 

 lying under the dam, and miners use dynamite at the falls. The officers must have 

 better pay, as they incur the ill-will of their neighbours and have a hard time if they 

 do their duty. The legal season is from February 1 to August 15, which is right 

 on the iledway, but on this river the middle of April begins the run. Ou August 

 1 I got a salmon in most perfect condition. We thus lose two months' fishing, and 

 we think that there i.s a run of large fish in September and October, therefore cut 

 off this spring and sive us a month or six weeks in the fall, like the spring and fall 

 fishing of Scotland. There is talk of a new dam being built at the falls. The Torhrook 

 people are talking of it, and there should be a pass in it. 



E. S. Dodge said that the fish in the local waters were shad, salmon, bass, gas- 

 pereau, frostfish or tomcod, trout and sea trout up to Paradise and above there brook 

 trout or river trout. Frostfish are dipped at Laurencetown and barrelled when they 

 spawn about January 1. The first shad are usually taken about April 10, they are 6, 

 7 and 8 pounds weight and commencing to swell with spawn, the first shad being- 

 females but the next lot are males, 3 or 4 pounds, good firm fish and as good as Scott's 

 bay shad before they come into fresh water. The females are lower in the water and 

 the males we get near the top of the net high in the w^ater but they make no disturb- 

 ance in the water when spawning. A run of males and females together takes place. 

 Low water stops them at Paradise, but a freshet brings them up. The fish are black 

 on the back on first running in but later they are paler. The shad of the Avon and 

 Gaspereau go to Scott's bay. I once got four barrels salted and packed at $1 per barrel, 

 the people could not handle them they had not the salt and used a quantity for com- 

 post. They were hauling them with a hoist just as they lay dead in the weirs. It was 

 40 or 45 years ago, I was 15 years old. It is unjust that the men below should fish all 

 the time and above the weeklj- close time Friday night to Monday morning be en!- 

 forced in the river. From May 10 to June 15 alone is netting allowed in Annapolis 

 river from Paradise up to the head waters, and from October 1 to March 31 no trout, 

 &c., can be taken. In the Annapolis river there is a shad spawning ground 2J miles 

 above Middleton. On May 24 I saw a school of spawning shad in a nook where the 

 river iised to run, it was 5 feet deep and very clear with a fine growth of weeds. The 

 bottom was gravel and their backs were out of the water. There must have been four 

 barrels of them. They were so thick they rocked our canoe with their backs. Above 

 that, they spawn in the main river, but it is filled up with gravel washed out from the 

 bank. I have seen young fish hatched on the grounds where Mr. Finlaj'son was get- 

 ting his shad spawn for the government hatchery. They must have been fry of an 

 earlier run of spawners. Some shad spawn three miles below here a fine ground below 

 a good fly fishing pool. On the Nictaux about one mile above the mouth I have seen 

 spawning fish by the hundreds far more than in the Annapolis river. Formerly a 

 net would take 100 to 150 in one night. Two years ago they were pretty plentiful. 

 One man got four tons and he was only one of four fishing. In the river about Middle 

 ton all fish, three years ago a standing net b'elow the spawning ground I speak of scooped 

 90 shad at one haul. A set stationery net fished below and a gill net got most fish. 

 We got 100 here for spawn which Mr. Finlayson required. Shad used to go up 15 

 miles. Up at McGills it is clean gravel and salmon went there and gaspereau. Ob- 

 structions are the worst thing. They are (1) Laurencetown where the shad were 

 stopped 25 years ago, so that none were found in the river. It was washed away owing 

 to a fish-pass it is alleged placed in it, and the government were sued for damages. 

 The foundations are there yet. A plank sluice was put in for a fish pass but it passed 

 too much water down the owner thought, so the government men came and built one 

 through which no water ran except during spring freshets. It was a Eoger's pass. (2) 

 A dam 3 miles below the falls over which salmon get but no shad. It has no fishway. 



