Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine

Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of
Maine, by

Walter H. Rich
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Title: Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine
Author: Walter H. Rich
Release Date: February 13, 2005 [eBook #15035]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FISHING
GROUNDS OF THE GULF OF MAINE***
E-text prepared by Ronald Calvin Huber while serving as Penobscot
Bay Watch, Rockland, Maine

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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° 06' west longitude and 47° 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