Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine

The range of the striper includes the coastline of our Gulf from Cape Cod to western Nova Scotia. But its distribution there in detail is determined by its very evident preference for surf-swept beaches and for particular stretches of rocky or bouldery shoreline; also for shallow bays, inlets, and estuaries. The geographic status of bass in our Gulf also depends on whether it be a good bass year (or run of years) or a poor one.

When bass are reasonably plentiful, as they have been during the past 15 years, and with a good representation of fish of different ages, the outer shore of Cape Cod provides the most productive surf casting, with Monomoy Island, the general vicinity of Nauset Inlet, and the tip of the Cape northward from Highland Light perhaps the warmest stretches, in most years. But the topography of a beach may be altered to such an extent during severe storms that a stretch that is good bass water one summer may be poor the next. Nauset beach is an example, for very few bass have been caught or seen there during the present summer (1951), though this has been one of the most productive localities on the Cape during the past few summers. Considerable numbers, mostly [page 396] of the smaller sizes, are caught in Pleasant Bay too, within Nauset Marsh, and in Town Cove, Orleans.

Considerable catches are made by boats trolling outside the surf, also, or by casting in toward the breakers along the outer Cape Cod shore, when the weather permits. But the most productive and reliable trolling grounds are along the eastern and southern sides of Cape Cod Bay in most summers, especially off the Eastham shore a few miles southward from Wellfleet, and off the mouth of Scorton Creek, Barnstable and the Sandwich shore.^[62] the shores of Cape Cod and Cape Cod Bay have, in fact, been the chief center of abundance for bass within the Gulf from as far back as the record runs. Few bass are reported along the rocky stretch from the Cape Cod Canal to the entrance to Plymouth Harbor, though this would seem to be very good bass water, and schools must pass by. But many are caught in Plymouth Harbor, especially off Eel Creek, also up Duxbury Bay to the salt marsh creeks that open into its head.

Surf casters account for some along Duxbury Beach on the outside, for a few also in the boulder-strewn area at the western end of Humarock Beach.^[63] the North and South Rivers in Marshfield yield considerable numbers in good years; we have seen and taken good fish there. Anglers, casting from the shore, take a few (never any great number) on boulder-strewn stretches along the Scituate shore, while Glades Point was famous for large bass in earlier periods of abundance (p. 390), when it was common practice to chum the fish by throwing out chopped lobsters, a method never likely to be revived because lobsters are far too costly nowadays. The Cohasset shoreline (with which we are familiar) yields a few yearly (mostly caught between sunset and sunrise), occasionally a very large one. In seasons when there is a good run of the smaller sizes, considerable numbers are taken at various places within the limits of Boston Harbor; Hull Gut, Weir River in Hingham, and Wollaston Beach are well known localities. And in years when there is a run of little fish, many of them are caught from the docks and from the bridges, to the head of Boston Harbor.

The north shore of Massachusetts Bay seems not to be as attractive for bass as its succession of inlets, beaches, and rocky headlands might suggest, for catches reported are small and scattering in most summers. But the beaches and enclosed waters from a few miles north of Cape Ann to and including the mouth of the Merrimac River are productive enough to rank second to the Cape Cod-Cape Cod Bay region. Bass are taken in the surf from Ipswich Beach, Cranes Beach, and along the entire length of Plum Island Beach; many more are caught by boat fishermen over the flats within the mouth of the Merrimac, as well as about the jetties at its entrance. Schools are often reported in Plum Island Sound. And the Parker River, emptying into the latter, is not only well known water for bass, especially small fish, but it holds some bass over the winter (p. 400), and it is one of the few streams along the New England shores of our Gulf where very young bass have been taken within recent years (p. 398).

Some are caught in Hampton Harbor, N. H. But the next important bass waters (moving northward) are the lower reaches of the Piscataqua River system, marking the boundary between Maine and New Hampshire; a good number, large and small, are now caught there yearly. In good years bass are to be caught in several of the streams that drain the southern part of the Maine coast, especially in the York, the Mousam, and in the Saco which is the most productive. Schools are sighted and a few are caught along the intervening beaches and some in the shallows of Biddeford Pool.

Information as to the status of bass for the coastline and streams of northern and eastern Maine, past or present, is scant, and we have come to suspect that bass may never have been as plentiful there as was supposed. A few are caught here and there around Casco Bay in good years, product perhaps of the Kennebec. But the estimated catch in the Kennebec was only about 12,760 pounds as far back as 1880;^[64] and there have been far fewer bass there of late years. Our most recent information is that schools of large fish were seen in the lower Kennebec, off Popham and Reed Beaches in early October 1950 with some [page 397] caught up to 26 pounds, and that a few were being taken daily, in late June 1951.^[65] Nearly as many were taken in the Sheepscot, formerly, as in the Kennebec; the present condition is not known.^[66] there were bass in the St. George during the period 1936-1940; doubtless there are some there still, for we heard of some in the surf near Georgetown, Maine, in August 1951.

Bass are seen in most years in Bangor Pool at the head of the estuary of the Penobscot, where some are caught by anglers casting especially for them, also by salmon fishermen. And many in the 2- to 4-pound class were reported and caught in the Belfast River and in Searsport Harbor farther down Penobscot Bay in 1938. But there have not been enough of them there during the past few years to have caused special comment. Stripers were seen in the tide rips in the narrows between Mount Desert Island and the mainland (near the Hancock-Sullivan Bridge) in August 1951, and others were reported driving squid ashore near Winter Harbor, Maine, a few miles farther east. Salmon fishermen sometimes "rise" bass in the Narraguagus, and Atkins^[67] speaks of "a very few" in the St. Croix, though Huntsman found no recent record of bass in the Passamaquoddy region.

There may be an occasional bass in Maine rivers other than those we have mentioned, but there is nothing in the past record to suggest that there ever were many. In 1880, for example, the reported catch was nearly as great for the Kennebec (about 13,000 pounds) as for all the other rivers and coast of Maine combined (about 15,000 pounds). And there is no reason to suppose that the regional contrast has altered subsequently in this respect.^[68] In the Bay of Fundy region, bass, as Huntsman has pointed out,^[69] are confined to the large warm estuaries and the neighboring fresh water; i. e., to those of the St. John, Minas Basin-Cobequid Bay and Shubenacadie River systems, and of the Annapolis.

Available information suggests that bass always were more plentiful in St. John River waters than anywhere along the eastern part of the coast of Maine, and that they are still. Bass are occasionally caught in St. John Harbor, mostly between April and June.^[70] And while they were reported as already much less numerous in St. John waters by 1884 than they had been in earlier times,^[71] there still are enough of them in the St. John and its tributaries to have yielded commercial catches of 12,200 pounds in 1944, and 7,400 pounds in 1946. The most recent news that has reached us from the St. John is that salmon fishermen saw a school at the surface and caught some that weighed 3 to 11 pounds in late June or early July of 1951.^[72]

Bass are well known in the Minas Basin Cobequid region. According to local fishermen,^[73] as many as 80 fish are sometimes taken in weirs there in a day, most of them in the 8- to 10-pound category, but with occasional fish reported up to 33 pounds.

The status of the bass is especially interesting in the Shubenacadie River, for they are not only caught in fresh water there and in Shubenacadie Lake where they are known to spawn, but some large fish remain throughout the year in the lake; i.e., they behave like a land-locked population.^[74] A thousand or so, in fact, are caught yearly by anglers in the Lake and in the Shubenacadie River;^[75] and it is said that fish as large as 50 pounds have been taken,^[76] though most of them run small there.

We are informed^[77] that the catch by anglers was about 620 bass (average about 4½ pounds) in the Bass River, tributary to Cobequid Bay in 1950, and that the catches for 1949 and 1950 combined were about 1,350 fish (average about 21/3 pounds) in the Gaspereau, tributary to Minas basin; 4,650 fish (average about 5¾ pounds) in the Annapolis River; and about 125 fish (average 6 pounds) in the Bear River, tributary to Digby basin, in 1950. It is interesting, that these fish ran so small, for the bass caught in Cape Cod and northern Massachusetts waters during these same [page 398] years included a good number of very large fish (p. 403).

Anglers have also come to realize recently that bass are to be caught in various bays and river mouths along the western shoreline of Nova Scotia. But no definite information has reached us as to how plentiful they are there, or how large.

The regional contrasts in the abundance of bass along different sectors of the coastline of our Gulf may be illustrated more concretely by the commercial landings for 1945. ^[78]

A regional contrast of another sort, of interest to anglers, is that really large bass of (say) 30 pounds and upwards, are far more plentiful along the Massachusetts coast (especially in Cape Cod waters) than they are anywhere farther north and east in our Gulf.

Localities along the outer coast of Nova Scotia where we have heard (or read) of stripers are the head of Mahone Bay; head of Chedabucto Bay; and Mira Bay and other harbors of Cape Breton. The numbers caught there are so small that they are not included in the published statistics of the commercial catches for the counties in question. The shoal estuaries, however, of the Richibucto Bay region and also the estuary of the Miramichi River (on the southern shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence) harbor isolated populations of bass plentiful enough to have yielded commercial catches of about 3,800 pounds and 9,000 pounds, respectively, in 1929, 4,100 and 3,000 pounds in 1931^[81] And there is also a population (or populations) below Quebec in the lower St. Lawrence River, of bass that winter in that same general region, as proved by marking experiments recently carried out by Vladykov.^[82] there are enough of them, in fact, around Isle d'Orleans for bass fishing to be a favorite sport there. But the commercial catches are so small as to suggest that the stock of bass is not very large.^[83]

It has been known for many years that bass spawn in the St. John River,^[84] and it is probable that they also spawn in the small streams tributary to Minas Basin and Cobequid Bay at the head of the Bay of Fundy; in Grand Lake at the head of the Shubenacadie River, and probably in the Annapolis River. It is generally believed, also, that some bass spawned of old in all the larger rivers from the Penobscot westward. Great numbers, so small (2-3 inches) as evidently to be fry of the year, were caught, for example, in winter in the 1880's in the Kennebec, where ripe fish also have been reported^[85] from the end of June into July. But the only Maine or Massachusetts streams where we find evidence of spawning bass in recent years are the Mousam, in Maine, where fishermen have reported taking females with ripe eggs on several occasions;^[86] and the Parker, in Massachusetts, where Merriman^[87] took three fry of the year 2¾ to 3¼ inches (7.1-8.5 cm. long) on August 4, 1937. Thus it seems sufficiently established that a great majority of the bass that summer in the western side of our Gulf come from spawning grounds to the west and south.

Merriman's^[88] painstaking investigations show beyond reasonable doubt that most of the little bass of 2 to 5 pounds that appeared in great numbers along southern New England and to the northward in 1936 (p. 402), following a period of great scarcity of bass there, had been hatched two years previously (1934) in the region of Chesapeake Bay, perhaps some of them in the Delaware Bay region. Some of the abundant year classes of 1940 and 1942, which appeared in our Gulf in 1942, and 1944, also may have come [page 399] from equally far away; others perhaps from intermediate spawning areas.

Since the mature bass that visit the coasts of Cape Cod and northern Massachusetts in such plenty in good years almost certainly do not spawn in any numbers in any of the Gulf of Maine rivers, we can only suppose that they repair to more southerly rivers to spawn, perhaps to the Hudson, in particular. But many of them reach northern Massachusetts so early in the season, and so little information is available as to the condition of their sexual organs when they arrive, that we still face something of a mystery, here.

In the salt estuaries and open waters of our Gulf bass are taken only from late spring, through the summer, and until late in the autumn. In years when they are plentiful enough to attract attention, they are likely to be reported about equally early in the season all along from Cape Cod to the Merrimac River. In 1950,^[89] for example, bass had been reported from the outer shore of the Cape (Pleasant Bay and Orleans) by mid-May, from the North and South Rivers, at Marshfield on the southern side of Massachusetts Bay, and from the Merrimac at Amesbury by mid-May; we heard of one caught in Duxbury Bay as early as May 1 that same year; and in normally early years they are generally distributed along the Massachusetts Coast of the Gulf in May or by the first days of June. The first bass were reported in and off Hampton Harbor and in the Piscataqua River about the beginning of the second week in June (1950), and in Casco Bay about the middle of the month.

Bass are said to appear as early as the end of May in Bangor Pool at the head of the estuary of the Penobscot in some years.^[90] In 1950 they were scattered all along Penobscot Bay before the end of June. And it is probable that the seasonal schedule is about the same for the bass at the head of the Bay of Fundy, but information is scant.^[91]

Once the bass have appeared, they continue in evidence until well into the autumn (p. 399). During this part of the year, the bass of the coasts of Massachusetts and most of those in Maine are in salt water and in brackish, except for such as enter fresh water to spawn (p. 398). But they are caught all summer in fresh water far above the head of tide in the Shubenacadie in Nova Scotia (p. 397),^[92] also in the Annapolis, and part of the stock may have here a similar habit in various of the rivers of Maine, as in the Kennebec, where they ran up as far as Waterville until they were prevented by the construction of the dam at Augusta.^[93]

In rivers where bass winter, they may, of course, be taken in any month from late autumn into the spring (p. 400). As autumn approaches the bass vanish however from the open coast. What little information we have suggests that most of them have disappeared along the outer coasts of Maine by mid-October or the end of that month in most years. But they may be in evidence in Maine rivers until later in the autumn, as they were of old in the Kennebec, where Atkins^[94] described them as continuing "feeding in weedy coves until November"; and in the Mousam River in southern Maine, where fishing is said to have been good until November during the period 1938-1940, when our Gulf had a spectacular run of young fish (p. 402).

Farther southward in our Gulf, they may linger equally late off the open beaches. In 1949, for example, a set of traps^[95] located near Provincetown Harbor in 35-45 feet of water, took 3,705 pounds (the only large catch of the year) on November 3.

In 1950, a late season, Cape Cod Bay eastward from the Cape Cod Canal was described to us as "loaded" with bass until the third week in October, fair numbers were still being caught along the outer shore of Cape Cod at the end of the month, schools of small fish were reported on November 9, and half a dozen were landed from the surf on November 18, and one, on December 3.^[96] Surf casting is likely to be much more productive along the outer Cape Cod beaches during 2 weeks or even 3 weeks of November than it is in July or August, especially for the smaller fish, and during the hours of daylight (p. 391).

And the bass in salt water may be in evidence until equally late in the season in the Minas-Cobequid [page 400] Bay region, at the head of the Bay of Fundy for fishermen report taking them there through October and into November.^[97]

The question where the bass that visit the different parts of the coast of the Gulf of Maine spend their winters still awaits a comprehensive answer. It has long been known that the Chesapeake Bay bass winter in the deeper channels near the head, of the bay as well as in its estuaries, and in the lower reaches of the rivers, in a more or less inactive state; also those of the New Jersey coast run up into rivers to remain until the following spring, as described more than a century ago by Mease.^[98]

Knight[99] writes too, that as the weather becomes colder, the bass of the southern side of the Gulf of St. Lawrence "penetrate into the bays and arms of the sea and ascend the rivers at some distance, where they spend the winter resting on the mud in a half torpid state." the bass also, in Maine "pass the winter in quiet bays and coves of fresh water in the rivers," according to Atkins.^[1] We see no reason to doubt that the Bay of Fundy bass, and also those that still frequent the Maine rivers from the Penobscot westward, still follow this habit.

It has been known, also, for many years that some bass winter in the Parker River, in northern Massachusetts. In fact, some 8,700 pounds were taken there during the financial depression of 1930 (p. 402). Local fishermen tell us also that a few bass winter in the deeper parts of the North and South Rivers in Marshfield, Mass., on the southern side of Massachusetts Bay, apparently in salt water. But these and other small streams do not seem extensive enough to provide wintering grounds for all the schools of bass that appear in summer between southern Maine and Boston Harbor in reasonably good years. Neither is there anything in the available record to suggest that the Merrimac ever was an important wintering ground. And it is hardly conceivable that the multitude of bass that sometimes frequent Cape Cod Bay and the outer shore of the Cape in good bass years can winter nearby (unless they do so offshore), there being no large rivers along this section of the coast, and no local report of bass in winter in the shallow, partially enclosed bays there, or in the salt marshes.

It was generally believed until recently that the great majority of bass that frequent the Massachusetts coasts of the Gulf (and the Cape Cod region in particular), and also those that summer off southern Massachusetts and around the off-lying islands, move westward along the shore in autumn: some to contribute to the bodies of fish that are known to winter in the rivers of Connecticut and in the lower Hudson, and some to journey perhaps as far as Chesapeake Bay; i. e., to the region where many of them are hatched. The capture, however, in 1949, of an 18-inch bass some 60 miles south of Marthas Vineyard in 70 fathoms of water in February (p. 391) seems to favor the view, now gaining favor among observant anglers, that at least a part of the bass of the Cape Cod region may only move offshore to winter on bottom well out on the continental shelf in localities where the otter trawlers do not ordinarily operate, as has been found of late to be true of the summer flounder (p. 268).

If true, this would mean that some of the Chesapeake-hatched bass that spread northward to Massachusetts and Maine when 2 or 3 years old may never return to their home waters. More definite information in this regard is to be expected from tagging experiments now in progress.

« Previous |  1 |  2 |  3 |  4 |  Next »

[62] Many are caught by anglers casting in the Cape Cod Canal, but this is not properly a part of the Gulf of Maine.

[63] the bouldery area at the eastern end at the North River inlet is now within the limits of the military reservation; hence the only way to fish it is from a boat by casting in, toward the rocks.

[64] Atkins, Fish. Ind. U. S., Sect. 5, vol. 1, 1887, p. 675.

[65] Reported in Saltwater Sportsman for October 6, 1950.

[66] Yearly catch about 1880, some 8,000 pounds in the Sheepscot according to Atkins, Fish. Ind. U. S., Sect. 5, vol. 1, 1887, p. 716.

[67] Atkins (Fish. Ind. U. S., Sect. 5, vol. 1, 1887, p. 700) reports one of 20 pounds, taken in the St. Croix in a weir in 1880.

[68] What few bass were reported from Maine in 1919 were from the Kennebec (592 pounds) and from Penobscot waters (57 pounds); bass have not been included in the fisheries statistics for Maine for any subsequent years.

[69] Contrib. Canadian Biol. (1921) 1922, p. 63.

[70] Information from Dr. A. H. Leim.

[71] Goode, Fish. Ind. U. S., Sect. 1, 1884, p. 425.

[72] Saltwater Sportsman for July 6, 1951.

[73] According to Moore, Boston Herald, August 28, 1950.

[74] Information from Dr. A. H. Leim.

[75] According to Huntsman, Ann. Rept. Fishery Board Canada, (1949) 1950, p. 41.

[76] Vladykov and McKenzie, Proc. Nova Scotia Inst. Sci., vol. 19, 1935, p. 91.

[77] Information from Maj. Howard Scott of the Fishery Division of the Nova Scotian Department of Trade and Industry, received through Henry Lyman.

[78] the most recent year for which detailed statistics are readily available.

[81] This is the most recent year for which information is available for Northumberland and Kent Counties.

[82] Rapp. Gen. Ministr. Chasse et Pêch., Quebec, Pêcheries (1946-1947) 1947, p. 50.

[83] the reported catch for 1948-1949 was only about 1,800-1,900 pounds (17 quintals; See Rapp. Gen. Ministr. Chasse et Pêch., Quebec, Pêcheries (1948-1949) 1949, p. 94).

[84] Adams, Field and Forest Rambles. 1873, Pt. 3, Fishes, p. 248.

[85] Atkins, Fish. Ind. U. S., vol. 5, Sect. 1, 1887, p. 693.

[86] Towne, State of Maine Striped Bass Survey, Maine Devel. Comm. and Dept. Sea and Shore Fisheries, 1941 [approx. date], p. 14.

[87] Fishery Bulletin No. 35, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1941, vol. 50, p. 17.

[88] Fish. Bull. No. 35, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1941, pp. 46-52

[89] This is the only year for which we have detailed information.

[90] Weston, Field and Stream, March 1932, p. 69.

[91] Moore (Boston Herald, Aug. 28, 1950) reports that bass are taken in traps from July on, in the Cobequid Bay region.

[92] Huntsman, Ann. Rept. Fisheries Res. Board Canada, (1949) 1950, App. 2, pp. 41-42.

[93] Atkins, Fish. Ind. U. S., Sect. 5, vol. 1, 1887, p. 693.

[94] Fish. Ind. U. S., Sect. 5, vol. 1, 1887, p. 693.

[95] Property of the Pond Village Cold Storage Co., of North Truro, to whom we are indebted for much information.

[96] Reported by Henry Moore, Boston Herald for Dec. 7, 1950.

[97] Report by Henry Moore, Boston Herald for Aug. 28, 1950.

[98] Trans. Litt. Phil. Soc. New York, vol. 1, 1815, pp. 502-504.

[99] the River Fisheries of Nova Scotia, 1867, p. 12.

[1] Fish. Ind. U. S., Sect. 5, vol. 1, 1887, p. 693.

Bluefish Pomatomus saltatrix (Linnaeus) 1758

Striped Bass Roccus saxatilis (Walbaum) 1792

Summer flounder (fluke) Paralichthys dentatus (Linnaeus) 1766

Weakfish Cynoscion regalis (Bloch and Schneider) 1801

07.02.27 R. 10.03.07