Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine | Page 2

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