The trawls were baited with herring and set on the bottom in rather deep water. Mr. Mayo states that these were the first salmon ever taken on trawl lines in that region. The Cranberry Isles lie off the southeastern part of Mount Desert Island, and are about 25 miles east from Penobscot Bay and about 35 miles in a straight line from the mouth of the Penobscot River.
On the Massachusetts coast salmon are now regularly taken each year at most of the important pound-net and trap fisheries. The largest numbers are caught in Cape Cod Bay. A State law prohibits the taking of salmon in nets and requires the return to the water alive of all fish so caught. This makes the fishermen diffident about giving information and renders difficult the determination of the abundance of the fish. On June 6, 1879 the Cape Ann Advertiser, of Gloucester, contained the following note:
"A 10-pound salmon was taken from a weir off Magnolia Thursday night. This is the first salmon caught off Cape Ann for over thirty years. On Saturday morning three more large salmon were taken. The fishermen are highly elated at the prospect of salmon-catching."
During the past five or six years a few salmon have been taken almost every season in the vicinity of Gloucester, the average annual catch being 4 to 6 fish. In 1888 the State fish commissioners reported the capture of 18 salmon in traps at Manchester and Gloucester. In 1893, 13 traps in the neighborhood of Gloucester took 5 salmon.
In December, 1891, a salmon weighing 28 pounds was caught on a cod trawl line set near Halfway Rock, off Salem Harbor, Mass.; Mr. William Dennett, of Gloucester, who secured the fish, reports that he sold it for $46. Mr. Samuel Wiley, of Gloucester, in September 1893, caught a salmon at sea off Gloucester on a trawl line fished for hake. These are the only instances that have been reported of the capture of salmon on a hook in the vicinity of Gloucester. As the trawl lines in question were set on the bottom at a depth of 20 or 25 fathoms, the fact that these two fish at least were swimming on the bottom may be considered established.
Relatively large numbers of salmon have recently been taken in the pound nets of Cape Cod Bay. Capt. Atkins Hughes, of North Truro, one of the best-informed and most reliable fishermen in the region, informs us that at North Truro, the principal pound-net center in the bay, about 70 large salmon have been annually caught for two or three years. The fish are taken throughout the entire pound-net season, but are most common in the early part of the fishing year (May and June). Some fish weighing 25 to 28 pounds have recently been caught. For two or three years he has noticed in the pound nets in October large numbers of young salmon, about 6 inches long; each net probably takes one or two barrels of these annually; he had never observed these small fish before in his long fishing career in that region. In 1893, however, rather less than the usual number of large salmon were observed, and very few of the small fish mentioned were taken.
Mr. Vinal N. Edwards, of the Fish Commission station at Woods Holl, Mass., states that in September, 1892, when he visited the Cape Cod region, a great many salmon were being taken in the pound nets. They weighed 4 or 5 pounds apiece. At one pound-net fishery in Provincetown he saw enough salmon to fill two sugar barrels.
Concerning the occurrence of salmon in the Cape Cod region, Mr. Cheney, in the article previously mentioned, quotes Hon. Eugene G. Blackford, of New York, as follows:
"We get every winter a few fish from the Atlantic coast that are evidently part of the schools of fish that run up into the Kennebec, Penobscot, and other eastern rivers. During November and December we had about 15 to 20 fish, weighing from 12 to 24 pounds each, that were caught in the mackerel nets in the vicinity of Provincetown and North Truro, Mass. These nets are set out from the Cape in very deep water.
"During the past two or three weeks we have received several specimens of very handsome salmon from Maine, where they have been caught by the smelt fishermen in their nets when they have been fishing for smelt. I think these catches of salmon go very far to prove that the schools of fish are not very far off from our shores during the time that they are not found in the rivers, and that both shad and salmon, when they leave our rivers, do not go either east or south, but are within 100 miles or so of the rivers where they were spawned. The fish are remarkable in being in splendid condition and perfect in form and appearance."