THE RIVER FISHERIES OF MAINE. 709 
nets and the mode of setting them vary a little, to adapt them to the presence or absence of ice. 
Yn open water the nets are attached to frames which swing at heavy moorings. When the ice is 
strong enough to bear, the net is attached to a pair of long poles pushed down through a hole in 
the ice, with which the whole fixture rises and falls with the tide. In the Thoroughfare, and in 
the main river at Winterport, though the ice sometimes forms, it is too uncertain and unstable to 
be made use of to support the fixtures. But farther up the river, above Mill Creek, the ice- 
fixtures are in exclusive use. From Mill Creek down to Hurd’s Brook fishing begins before the 
ice forms, and when it does form the nets are removed from the open-water fixtures and the ice- 
fixtures brought into use. 
At the Bucksport and Verona bridge is a fishery of nets which are set between the piers of 
the bridge, substantially in the manner of the ice-nets of Orrington, but with the poles resting on 
the bottom. 
In the winter of 1879-80 there were 15 bag-nets in use in Orland; 31 in the Thoroughfare 
(including 8 at the bridge); 10 at Frankfort; 20 at Winterport Village; 13 at the “Bolan” ground 
‘some 2 miles above Winterport Village; 25 in Orrington. 
The only dip-net fishing for smelts now existing on the Penobscot is at Orland, and that has 
long ago ceased to be of any importance. 
Fishing for smelts with hook and line is occasionably tried in the main river near Mill Creek 
and at some other points, but is regularly employed only in Belfast Harbor and in Bagaduce River. 
In the latter locality it is followed by nearly one hundred persons. The fishing ground extends 
from Johnson’s Narrows upward about 5 miles. The smelts are at hand in the fall, and in No- 
vember the fishermen sometimes fish for them from rafts. But it is not until December that the 
river freezes up and the regular fishing begins, in little cloth huts on the ice. The first of the sea- 
son only the ice above the toll-bridge at North Brooksville is strong enough to bear, but later 
operations extend down to the vicinity of the narrows. The fishing is followed at any time of tide, 
but only by day. The catch in 1880 amounted to about 61,000 pounds. 
"The total yield of all branches of the fishery for the year is estimated at 366,875 pounds of 
smelts. 
Historical notes on the fisheries of Penobscot River.—Of the great immigration into Maine that 
set in from the other colonies, especially from Massachusetts, shortly after the middle of the 
eighteenth century, the Lower Penobscot Valley received its fair share. The early settlers found 
salmon, shad, and alewives very abundant, and engaged in their capture on a limited scale with 
such implements as they could command. Across the mouths of a few shallow coves they built, 
with stakes and brush, half-tide weirs to catch alewives, and with them took many shad. They 
knit nets with which they caught salmon, either by drifting in mid-stream or by setting the nets 
out from shore, secured by stakes and killocks. In the small streams and at convenient points in 
the larger ones they plied the dip-net. Notwithstanding the primitive character of their methods 
and apparatus, they took great quantities of fish. The local consumption was small; there were no 
good facilities for sending fish to the larger markets. The surplus salmon were mostly smoked, 
the shad pickled, and the alewives dry-salted and picked in barrels. These cured fish were 
forwarded to market by schooners bound for Boston, New York, or more southern ports. The 
demand for shad was limited, and they were less objects of pursuit than salmon and alewives ; at 
first they were only taken in the cove-weirs built for alewives, and as accidental captures in the 
salmon nets, but after a while a better demand arose, and nets were knit and plied especially for 
them. 
