THE RIVER FISHERIES OF MAINE. 695 
set in without any frame. The tide is so strong that the nets can only be drawn out when it is 
rather slack; so they are drawn only at high and low water, and kept in place all the rest of the 
time. This method has also been in use at some points on the Kennebec River, and indeed is 
probably a very ancient méthod. 
Hook and line.—The hook and line fishing for bass is practiced as a pastime at a few points, 
especially near obstructions at the head of the tide, as at Augusta, on the Kennebec. 
MoDES OF CURING.—The only mode of curing bass employed in Maine is salting in barrels. 
Some parties once dried a large lot of them in Casco Bay, but they are said to have been too fat to 
keep, and all were lost. With the exception of an occasional large haul all the bass are now 
marketed fresh. 
HISTORICAL NOTES.—Bass were undoubtedly quite plenty in early times in most of the rivers 
west of the Penobscot. In the latter river the old fishermen speak of them as having been 
“plenty,” but the degree of abundance was by no means equal to that existing in the Kennebec, 
and at no time has this species been marketed in any considerable numbers from the Penobscot or 
any river farther east. In the west they were early subjects of legislation, indicating not only 
that they were plenty enough to be thought worthy of attention, but also that there was an 
actual or apprehended diminution of their numbers. The preamble to an act of the New Hamp- 
shire legislature “to preserve the fish in Piscataqua River,” recites that the fishing for bass and 
bluefish* in winter ‘‘ hath almost destroyed the bass and bluefish in said river.” In 1800 the 
legislature of Massachusetts passed an act “for fhe preservation of fish called bass in Dunstan 
River in Scarborough, in the county of Cumberland.” On the Kennebec at Abagadasset Point, as 
late as 1830, bass were so plenty that the fishermen were troubled to dispose of those taken in the 
weirs. A single weir has been known to take 1,000 pounds at one tide. There was no demand 
‘for them. Sometimes hired men would take them in pay. When plentiest they were given away. 
Mr. John Brown says that about the time of their first diminution he obtained a contract with 
General Millay, the keeper of the Bowdoinham town poor, to furnish 1,600 pounds of bass at 
three-quarters of a cent per pound, but the fish were not plenty that year and he caught only 800 
pounds. The extent of the diminution is illustrated by comparing the above statement with the 
statistics representing the present condition of the bass fishery. The total catch of twenty-two 
weirs on and about Abagadasset Point in 1880 was but 3,510 pounds; the Kennebec River yielded 
a total of 12,760 pounds, and the entire State 26,760 pounds. 
THE EEL (ANGUILLA ROSTRATA). 
NATURAL HISTORY.—The common eel is found all along the coast of Maine and in all the 
rivers accessible from the sea, a8 well as in some fresh waters which would appear to be absolutely 
inaccessible in their present condition.t In waters communicating with the sea the young eels 
move up-stream in early summer to the fresh water of lakes and streams, where they feed and 
grow. Atthe beginning of this migration the young eels are very small. In the month of July 
they can be found 4 or 5 inches long climbing dams at the head of tide waters. They are able to 
crawl many feet up a perpendicular wall down which the thinnest sheet of water is trickling, and 
it is probable that they pass many dams that are insuperable to all other fishes, and thus reach 
some waters very remote from the sea. The adult females, or a portion of them, are found 
*The term “bluefish” must refer to some other than the marine species now known by that name. 
t This is still debatable ground, some observers maintaining that all eels, however remote from the sea they may 
be found, reached their abode by ascending the rivers. 
