HfTERIM REPORT 95 



thing Veliiw fijiht iioiiiuls is a " fiddler." The average sahiioii ai-e 12 pounds- I pay 

 the price of two salmon for the big ones. There are so many large ones, over 50 of 

 those I handled being 20 pounds weight, whereas formerly five or sis would be all that 

 would be taken. 1 get about a quarter of the local catch, i.f., IG boats as there are 

 over 60 boats at the salmon fishery. I handled 4,000 fish, averaging 12i pounds each. 

 The men here used to use 6i or 6|, but now they use 7 inches or 6J. The fall shad I 

 may add come up to feed. 



Thomas Galbraith said: I have a farm, but I fish chiefly for shad, salmon, gas- 

 pereau and a few herring. I fish very little for haddock. The scarcity of shad is 

 diflicult to explain, as our catch is a row of pins only compared with the whole fishery. 

 Formerly 1,000 shad would be a boat's catch in one night of fall shad. That would be 

 forty years ago. After that fall shad dwindled down till only one boat fished them 

 here. Xo one fished for spring shad though plenty occurred. Fifteen years ago the 

 shad increased and for four or five years the fishing was again good. Then spring 

 shad fishing- began and they brought 4 cents or 5 cents often as low as 3 cents, but 

 before that we could not sell them. For seven or eight years fall shad have been very 

 scarce and spring shad too. The demand for spring shad increased and more money 

 is made out of them than out of fall shad. We get for them 20 cents instead of 4 

 cents. The few fall shad we get in the salmon nets we thought were coming down 

 from the head of the bay, Windsor and other places. They appeared about July 1, and 

 were not large but fat. They seem to go down beyond Lepreaux. An odd ' come-back' 

 or poor shad we take, and of large size, also we get ' racer ' salmon. The spring shad 

 of St. John river have nothing to do with our fall shad here, they don't come out of 

 the river until after our fishing is over. The fall shad are shy and don't feed on 

 shrimp, there is no red feed there but at Deadmans the shad were feeding on red fish 

 or shrimp. Our drift nets are 5J and 5J inch mesh, 40 meshes deep, 420 fathoms to a 

 boat, and they are fished at the surface of the sea. The shad here swim at the surface, 

 but down this side of Eastport they swim deeper and are caught in the deeper meshes 

 of the net. They are fatter and softer and don't keep so long. They mesh at one and 

 a half or two fathoms there. 



Jonx IMcCavolr said that each locality had its own run of fish, every shad like the 

 salmon returns to its own river to spawn. The spring shad differs from the fall shad 

 as the latter has a spot Eut not the former. I think that the Florida shad come here 

 (fall shad) and go back as the people from here followed them back clear to Cape 

 Florida some years ago when fall shad were plentiful. Both spring and fall runs are 

 caught out that explains their scarcity. Formerly there was no demand for spring 

 shad and we never put out our nets till the fall run began. The mesh of salmon was 

 too large and shad went through, so not many were seen or taken. Tears ago 1,000 fall 

 shad would be taken by a boat during the few weeks fishing. Only fiftj' shad taken 

 this year by a boat, most less than that, though some boats got more. Twelve years 

 ago 1 began fishing in spring and ever sindfe it has declined. I caught 2,000 the first 

 year, and say 1,000 a year for the next five or six years, only 300 this year, but some 

 men only got 200. We only fish from two to ten nights, and it is the high prices in the 

 States makes it pay. The decline is due to the shad bein*' caught and prevented from 

 spawning. 



James McPhee said: I have fished 23 j-ears and never missed a season. I fished 

 in the spring at first, but prices were low, only 3 cents to 4 cents each. I fitted out 

 for my t elf eighteen years ago and it was a good season, 400 shad being the catch (one 

 boat\ and the .same fall 5,000 were also taken, but I had two boats in the fall and 

 hired a man to help in fishing. We sold the catch fresh to Patterson and he said he 

 had received so many shad that we must stock some. We got fall shad from August 

 1st to the end of the month, sometimes going on till September and October as a few 



