Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine by Walter H. Rich

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FISHING GROUNDS OF THE GULF OF MAINE [1]

by

WALTER H. RICH
Agent, United States Bureau of Fisheries

CONTENTS

Introduction
Acknowledgements
Gulf of Maine
Geographical and Historical Name
Description
Bay of Fundy
Inner Grounds
Outer Grounds
Georges Area
Offshore Banks
Tables of Catch, 1927
Maps
Index to grounds

PREFACE TO THE 1994 EDITION

Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine by Walter H. Rich first appeared in
the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Fisheries, Report of the
United States Commissioner of Fisheries, for the fiscal year 1929.

When Captain Robert McLellan of Boothbay Harbor died in 1981, the
employees of the Maine Department of Marine Resources contributed money
to be used to purchase books in his memory, for the Department's
Fishermen's Library. Captain McLellan's family was asked what purchases
they would recommend, and a top priority was to somehow reprint this
work on the fishing grounds. This was a book that had been helpful to
Captain McLellan in his career, and one which his son, Captain Richard
McLellan, found still valid and useful.

Contributions from the employees of the Department of Marine Resources
paid to get this project started; film to reproduce the pages of the
original text was donated by the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences;
printing costs were paid by the Department.

It is the hope of the Department and its employees that the fishermen of
today will benefit from the detailed information in this publication,
and that they will remember Captain Robert McLellan, a man who knew how
to use books to enhance his career as a fisherman, who knew how to share
his knowledge with the scientific community, and who was widely
respected by fishermen and scientists alike.

INTRODUCTION

Paralleling the northeastern coast line of North America lies a long
chain of fishing banks--a series of plateaus and ridges rising from the
ocean bed to make comparatively shallow soundings. From very early times
these grounds have been known to and visited by the adventurers of the
nations of western Europe--Northman, Breton, Basque, Portuguese,
Spaniard, Frenchman, and Englishman. For centuries these fishing areas
have played a large part in feeding the nations bordering upon the
Western Ocean, and the development of their resources has been a great
factor in the exploration of the New World.

According to statistics collected by the Bureau of Fisheries.[2] these
banks annually produce over 400,000,000 pounds of fishery products,
which are landed in the United States; and, according to O. E. Sette,[3]
annually about 1,000,000,000 pounds of cod are taken on these banks and
landed in the United States, Canada, Newfoundland, France, and Portugal.

Apparently the earliest known and certainly the most extensive of these
is the Great Bank of Newfoundland, so named from time immemorial. From
the Flemish Cap, in 44 deg. 06' west longitude and 47 deg. north latitude,
marking the easternmost point of this great area, extends the Grand Bank
westward and southwestward over about 600 miles of length. Thence, other
grounds continue the chain, passing along through the Green Bank, St.
Peters Bank, Western Bank (made up of several more or less connected
grounds, such as Misaine Bank, Banquereau, The Gully, and Sable Island
Bank); thence southwest through Emerald Bank, Sambro, Roseway, La Have,
Seal Island Ground, Browns Bank, and Georges Bank with its southwestern
extension of Nantucket Shoals.

To all these is added the long shelving area extending from the coast
out to the edge of the continental plateau and stretching from the South
Shoal off Nantucket to New York, making in all, from the eastern part of
the Grand Bank to New York Bay, a distance of about 2,000 miles, an
almost continuous extent of most productive fishing ground.

Within the bowl that is the Gulf of Maine, the outer margin of which is
made by the shoaling of the water over the Seal Island Grounds, Browns
Bank, and Georges Bank, this chain is further extended by another series
of smaller grounds, as Grand Manan Bank, the German Bank, Jeffreys Bank,
Cashes Bank, Platts Bank, Jeffreys Ledge, Fippenies Bank, Stellwagen or
Middle Bank; and again, lying inside these, this fishing area is
increased by a very large number of smaller grounds and fishing spots
located within a very short distance of the mainland.

All these banks are breeding places of the most valued of our food
fishes--the cod, haddock, cusk, hake, pollock, and halibut--and each
in its proper season furnishes fishing ground where are taken many other
important species of migratory and pelagic food fishes as well as those
named here. It is probable that no other fishing area equaling this in
size or in productivity exists anywhere else in the world, and the
figures of the total catch taken from it must show an enormous poundage
and a most imposing sum representing the value of its fishery.

With the most distant of these grounds we shall not deal here, leaving
them for later consideration when noting certain of the fishery
operations most characteristic of them. Thus, we may treat of those
well-defined areas that lie within or are adjacent to the Gulf of Maine,
such as the Bay of Fundy, the Inner Grounds (those close to the
mainland), the Outer Grounds (those within the gulf), the Georges area,
Seal Island Grounds, and Browns Bank, these forming the outer margin of
the gulf; and also make mention of certain others of those nearer
offshore banks that are most closely connected with the market fishery
of the three principal fishing ports within the Gulf of Maine.

[Footnote 1: First published as Appendix III to the Report of the US
Commissioner of Fisheries for 1929. Bureau of Fisheries Doc# 1059.
Submitted for publication Jan 18,1929.]

[Footnote 2: U.S. Bureau of Fisheries Statistical Bulletin No. 703]

[Footnote 3: U.S. Bureau of Fisheries Document No. 1034]

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As to the charts, it has been the writer's endeavor, by consulting a
large number of fishing captains of long experience upon these grounds,
to reduce the margin of inaccuracy as much as possible. In case of
conflict of their opinion, the greatest agreement as to the facts has
been accepted.

The grounds as drawn are not meant to include any definite depth curve
but are meant to show certain fishing areas. It is known of course, that
most species frequent the shallows and the deep water at the various
seasons: also, that certain other species are found on the deeper
soundings during virtually all the year. Thus, if a given area appears
as a larger ground than is shown upon other charts made for navigating
purposes, often this is because we have included in it a cusk ground or
a hake bottom lying adjacent to the shoal as charted.

A large number of these grounds have been described before by G. Browne
Goode and others, and where possible their work has been used as a basis
for the present paper, with any further information or the noting of any
changed condition of the grounds or difference in fishing methods
employed upon them that was obtainable.

Grateful acknowledgment is hereby made to the many captains who
furnished information that, made the drawing of the charts possible and
for the facts used in the descriptions of the fishing grounds.

With the offshore banks, particularly with the Georges area and Browns
Bank and to a certain extent, also, the western portion of the Inner
Grounds, the writer has had a considerable personal acquaintance from
which to draw.

For the geographical and historical data the writer has quoted freely
from various modern authors, who, in their turn, have drawn their facts
from older records. Among those quoted are Holmes's American Annals;
Parkman's Pioneers of France in the New World; Southgates History of
Scarburo; Abbott and Elwell's History of Maine; Willis's History of
Maine; Sabine's Report on the Principal Fisheries of the American Seas;
A History of the Discovery of the East Coast of North America, by Dr.
John G. Kohl, of Bremen, Germany; various chapters of Hakluyt's Voyages;
the Journal of John Jocelyn, Gent.; and New England Trials of the famous
Captain John Smith.

GULF OF MAINE--GEOGRAPHICAL & HISTORICAL NAME

What is apparently the earliest mention of this body of water appears
on some old Icelandic charts that show, roughly, Cape Cod Bay in
their southern areas and the Bay of Fundy in the northern. On these maps
the cape itself was shown on the "Promontory of Vinland" and was given
the name Kialarnes, or the Ship's Nose, from its resemblance in form to
the high upturned prow of the old Norse ships. To the entire area of the
gulf was given the title Vinland's Haf.

Oviedo (Historia General de las Indias) sometimes names this gulf the
Arcipelago de La Tramontana, or the Arcipelago Septentrional--the
northern archipelago. He gives us to understand that he, himself, or
Chaves, had this information from the Report and Survey of Gomez, who,
in his search for a northwest passage to Asia in 1525, "discovered all
these coasts lying between 41 deg. and 41 deg. 30' north". As a matter
of fact, his careful explorations certainly covered all the territory
between 40 and 45 degrees.

The Spanish navigators who followed Gomez, in describing these coasts,
when indicating this gulf, usually named it in honor of Gomez, the first
of their nation to make a careful survey of its shores. Thus it became
known as the Arcipelago de Estevan Gomez, and the mainland behind it as
La Tierra de Gomez. It was so named on the map of Ribero in 1529 who
thus acknowledged the source of his information.

The Biscayans followed Gomez but later gave way to the French fishermen,
who followed down the chain of banks extending southward from the Grand
Bank and entered these waters by way of Cape Sable. These gave to it the
name Gulf of Norumbega or Sea of Norumbega. The name Norumbega was for a
time applied to the coast lands and to the inland country stretching
away indefinitely westward and northwestward from the waters of the
gulf.

Later, with the coming of the English and the establishment of their
colony in Massachusetts, the title Massachusetts Bay came into general
use, although this name was afterwards restricted to the smaller section
of the gulf at present so termed.

The charter of Gorges (in April, 1639) designated the territory deeded
to him as the Province or County of Maine,[4] whence, perhaps, the
modern custom of referring to these waters as the Gulf of Maine may have
arisen. This latest name seems especially appropriate, in view of the
fact that the present State of Maine lying directly opposite its
entrance capes, stretches along the inner borders of the gulf and with
its deeply indented shore line occupies by far the greatest section of
its coasts. Thus the title has finally come into general use and
acceptance in modern times. Apparently it was first officially proposed
and used by the Edinburgh Encyclopedia in 1832 [5] and later was adopted by
the United States Coast Survey.

[Footnote 4: "All that parte, purport and porcion of the Mayne Land of New
England, we doe name, ordeyne and appoynt shall forever hereafter bee
called and named The Province and Countie of Mayne."]

[Footnote 5: Edinburgh Encyclopedia, Philadelphia edition, by Thomas
Parker, Vol. XVIII, p. 263.]

DESCRIPTION

A very striking and peculiar body of water is this Gulf of Maine,
markedly different in character from any other of the bays on the coast
line of the eastern United States. Especially does it differ in the
depth of its coastal waters, where in all the others, except the much
smaller New York Bay, the shoal water is found extending far out from
the land.

In the Gulf of Maine, however, with the single exception of the vicinity
of Ammens Rock on the eastern part of Cashes Bank, the entire central
area presents navigable deep water having a mean depth of 100 fathoms,
out of which rise the various underwater plateaus, whose depths average
about 50 fathoms and which constitute the larger of the fishing grounds.
In addition to these, many smaller banks and "fishing spots" are found
nearer the land where they lie a along the 50-fathom curve.

In general this curve lies at a distance of about 16 miles from the
coast line, but in many instances it approaches much neared to the
mainland. From this 50-fathom depth the soundings decrease very
gradually to the 20 and 10 fathom marks.

These latter soundings are often held far in toward the coast line, even
carrying the deep water well into the river mouths, so that in deeply
indented hays, in long inlets running far into land, in the river
mouths, the deep water behind the rocky headlands, or in the lee of the
thousands of surf-washed islands that line the coast, are found
innumerable safe anchorages within easy run of the fishing grounds,
where the fleets may take shelter from a sudden blow or await the
arrival of a "fish day," when conditions may permit "making a set" under
the hardships of winter fishing.

If the marine features of this region are radically different from those
of other coastal bodies of the eastern United States, so, too, the shore
land, battered as it has been by sea and storm or worn by glacial action
or Arctic currents, is no less remarkable.

No other section of the eastern United States has a similar coast, so
serrated, indented, and rugged, as has this shore line of the Gulf of
Maine. Here the battering by the forces of nature has resulted in making
thousands of safe harbors and havens for the navigator. All along shore
are strewn hundreds of islands, a characteristic feature of the region
and one noted with wonder by every early explorer. [6] These islands, if
near the land, are beautiful and smiling; if in the open sea, of rugged
grandeur; and mainland and island alike are inhabited by a numerous and
hardy race of fisher folk.

The tides within the Gulf of Maine have a very great rise and fall as
compared with other waters in this region. At the south of Cape Cod
tides are seldom over 4 feet in their range, but beginning at once at
the north of Cape Cod with a rise of from 7 to 10 feet these increase
quite constantly as they go eastward reaching about 28 feet in the
neighborhood of Passamaquoddy Bay, to touch their highest point in the
Bay of Fundy, where in many places is a rise and fall of 50 feet, and in
some few places tides of 70 feet are reported. These Fundy tides
probably are the greatest in the world.

This great ebb and flow of water serves to aid shipbuilding and the
launching of vessels as well as to carry the deep water far up into the
inlets of the coast and into the mouths of the rivers, making these
navigable for crafts of considerable size well into the land or up to
the lowest falls of the streams.

The climate here is one of extremes, and, lying as it does between 42 deg.
and 45 deg. north latitude, the region may be said to be cold. Apparently
the waters of the Gulf of Maine are not affected by any stray current
from the Gulf Stream, which passes at a considerable distance from its
mouth, thus doing little to temper the cold of this area either on land
or at sea. Whether these waters are cooled further by any flow from the
Labrador Current may be questioned.

The winters are long, usually bringing heavy snowfalls; and strong gales
are frequent during much of the fall and winter season. Perhaps the most
dangerous of these "blows" come out of the mountain to the north and
northwest of the gulf. Thus, in addition to the uncertainty of an
opportunity to set gear when once upon the fishing grounds, the winter
fishing here is not without its element of serious danger. While the ice
crop in northern New England never fails, yet, perhaps because of the
strong tidal currents of these waters, the principal harbors rarely are
closed by ice, or, if closed, for but a few days only.

While the summers are fairly mild and in certain parts of them even
extremely hot, fogs are heavy and virtually continuous during the "dog
days" (July 20 to September 1). when southerly and south-westerly
breezes bring the warm moist air from the Gulf Stream into the cooler
currents from the land. The fogs of Fundy are especially noted, even in
these waters. During the summer seasons winds from the east and north
bring the only clear weather experienced in the outer chain of fishing
grounds.

The main body of the gulf lies approximately between 42 deg. and 45 deg.
north latitude. It is in form like a deep bowl whose outer rim is made
by Georges Bank and Browns Bank, with a narrow, deep-water spillway
between: its area is half encircled in the arms of the mainland, two
conspicuous headlands reaching bodily seaward to mark its wide entrance
at the opposite sides--Cape Cod, Mass. [7] on the western side, and Cape
Sable, [8] Nova Scotia, on the eastern flank, distant from each other
about 230 miles. These two capes range with each other about ENE. and
WSW, thus matching alike the general trend of the coast line, of the
island chains and of the offshore ledges within this area.

From a base line connecting these outposts of the gulf the distance to
the Maine coast opposite averages about 120 miles. From Cape Sable, at
its eastern end, the coast trends for some distance to the northwest,
whence a continuation of this course strikes the coast of Maine near
West Quoddy Head at a distance of rather more than 110 miles. From West
Quoddy head to Cape Elizabeth (in a direct line about 160 miles) the
coast, in general rough, rocky, and with many lofty headlands is
extremely irregular and deeply indented and follows a general course of
WSW. Thence, the coast, lower and becoming more and more sandy, begins
to trend more decidedly south-west until it reaches Boston, when it
turns to the southeast, and to the east toward Cape Cod.

But this is not the entire story. There remain outside of these stated
limits the Bay of Fundy in the north, with a possible area of 3,000
square miles; and at the south Cape Cod Bay, whose area, with that of
the waters west of a perpendicular drawn from the western end of the
base line that strikes the land in the vicinity of Portsmouth, N. H.
makes an additional section containing close to 1,500 square miles.
Within the limits thus inclosed there are, roughly, 30,000 square miles
of most productive ground most intensively fished through all the year.

The Bay of Fundy is divided at its head by Cape Chignecto, making two
branches to north and to east--Chignecto Bay and Minas Basin. With
these smaller areas, lying as they do entirely within the territorial
limits of Canada, American fishermen have little to do, although both
are valuable and productive fishing grounds.

[Footnote 6: William Strachey (1609), speaking particularly of Casco Bay,
but the words equally applicable to almost any stretch of the Maine
coast, says "A very great bay in which there lyeth soe many islands and
soe thick and neere together, that can hardly be discerned the number,
yet may any ship pause betwixt, the greatest part of them having seldom
lesse water than eight or ten fathoms about them"--History of Travalle
into Virginia Britannica.]

[Footnote 7: This, the most striking cape of the Atlantic coast line,
made a very prominent landmark for all the early ocean voyagers
approaching it, and all were greatly impressed by it, whether they came
from the south and fought their way through its shoals to eastward, or,
coming from the north, found themselves caught in the deep pocket which
it makes with Cape Cod Bay.

The Spaniard Gomez (1525) gave it the name "Cabo de do Aricifes" cape
of the reefs, referring to the dangerous shoals to the eastward. The
Frenchmen Champlain and Du Monts named it "Cape Blanc", and the Dutch
pilots, also noting its sandy cliffs, called it Witte Hoeck. The English
mariners at first accepted his last name of White Cape, but the English
Captain Anthony Gosnold, the first to make a direct passage to the
waters of the Gulf of Maine from Europe, although at first he called it
"Shoal Hope", soon changed this, because of the success of his fishing,
to "Cape Cod", which title, commonplace though it be, has been the name
to endure despite Prince Charles's attempt to change it to Cape James in
honor of his father.]

[Footnote 8: Cape Sable, at the southern end of Nova Scotia, has held
this title from very old times. It is so indicated on a Portuguese map
of the middle of the sixteenth century.]

BAY OF FUNDY

At the different seasons of the year the entire Bay of Fundy [9] is a
fishing ground for sardines and large herring; and while these are of
somewhat less importance in recent years than formerly, the principal
fisheries of this region still center around the herring industries--the
supplying of the canning factories with the small herring used as
sardines and the taking of large herring for food and bait. The sardine
industry of the State of Maine is largely concentrated in the district
about and including Eastport and Lubec, where about 30 of the 59
factories and 16 of the 43 operating firms are located; so that, while
the herring catches of recent years have fallen much short of their
former proportions, they still show imposing figures.

In the past much of the catch was taken in St. Andrews (Passamaquoddy)
Bay and along the north shore of the Bay of Fundy to Lepreau Bay and
Point. Lepreau. Of late years virtually no herring have been taken in
these waters, in which the herring schools that arrive in October were
accustomed to remain until spring. Of past fishing in this locality
Capt. Sumner Stuart, of Lubec, says:

"The herring left St. Andrews Bay and the North Shore about 1885. There
is no summer netting there now. Those waters and Lepreau Bay were
formerly very productive fishing grounds, it being not unusual to take
5,000 (count) big herrings (food fish) in a single haul. These were
mainly spring and winter fishing grounds for large herring. The fish
seem to have disappeared from all these grounds at about the same
time.[10]

"In past years (25 to 30 years ago) small herring were driven ashore in
such quantities by their enemies--squid, silver hake and dogfish--that
it sometimes became necessary for the authorities at St. John to use a
snowplow to cover them where they lay decaying on the beach."

From the statistics of the sardine and smoked-herring industry for the
year 1924 (a year, be it noted, in which the sardine industry almost
reached low--level mark for the pack) the waters of the Bay of Fundy
furnished to American purchasers alone a total of herring for smoking
and canning purposes amounting to 76,756,250 pounds valued to the
fishermen at $957,665. This showing, poor as it is when compared with
the figures of other years, by no means represents the herring fishery
as an unimportant industry. There still remains to be accounted for the
catch of herring of Grand Manan and the neighboring Canadian Provinces.

A new source of profit to the fishermen in this industry has been
developed in the purchase of herring scales by firms engaged in the
manufacture of artificial pearls. For this purpose there were collected
at Eastport and Lubec 700,000 pounds of herring scales, valued at
$39,000; and a further amount was taken at Grand Manan of 140,000
pounds, valued at $7,000. With other entrants already in the field, this
branch of the industry bids fair to grow to still greater importance.

An estimate of the number of weirs in St. Andrews Bay, by Capt. Guilford
Mitchell of Eastport, Me., is as follows: Canadian: 1921: 126 weirs
1923: 40 weirs Calais to Eastport: 1921: 35 weirs; 1923: 7 weirs Total
number in operation, 1923, Canadian, about 300; American less than 130.

North Shore and coast of Nova Scotia. Along the North Shore
and from Yarmouth to Cape Sable, over a hard bottom, cod abound. The
western shore of Nova Scotia is virtually all fishing ground for cod,
haddock, hake, and cusk, but trawling is somewhat handicapped here by
strong tides and rocky bottom, these combining to destroy much gear.
Halibut are somewhat unusual on this western shore except about the
mouth of the Bay of Fundy, but in summer these fish are occasionally
found close inshore along the southwest coast, going somewhat beyond
Digby to the northward. Haddocking is quite an important industry off
Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, during the winter, the sets being of rather
short duration and made at the slack of the tide at high water. This
practice is made necessary by the heavy tidal currents on these grounds.

The whole western coast of Nova Scotia is herring ground at some season
of the year. "Drifting" for herring was formerly a considerable industry
from Digby to Briers Island, but in these last few years it has not been
important, although the year 1927 had a very good run of large food
fish. This western coast is also an important fishing area for lobster
men.

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