The Republican journal., 1892-03-24
Salmon at Sea.

''There is certain mystery about the
habits and movements of the sea salmon
after it has left the fresh water rivers in
which it spawns, and gone down to the
sea, that never has been satisfactory ex-
planned. One theory is that all the salmon
of the rivers along coast may journey
down to the sea and then move ultimately
in one great body southwark along the
coast until they find water of suitable
! temperature, with an abundance of food,
in which to spend their time in growing
fat until the spawning instinct warns them
to return, when they proceed northward,
each river school entering it's own pecu-
lar river as the main school arrives oppo-
site the river mouth. Another theory is,
that the salmon of each river as they ar
rive at its mouth, after descending from its
headquarters, go out to sea sufficiently far
| to find the conditions of temperature and
food which suits them and there they re-
main, separate from the salmon of other
rivers, until it is time for them to return
to fresh water. Considering the certainty
with which the salmon of any particular
river return again to the stream of their
birth, the latter theory seems most tena-
| bic of the two
That was written several years ago, and
"iille GIlo MY StcIy - sui ullSoNeu III Ill
particulars, light has been thrown upon
the matter which leads to the conclusion
| that the movements of the salmon are
governed entirely by the question of food
that if they find food at the mouth of the
rivers there they remain, and ii not they
seek it further away, in some instances at
great distance from their rivers Appar-
emily they seek no particular food as much
as they seek quantity.
A week or two ago l read in the market
report of New York paper that Atlantic
salmon We're worth a certain price and
that they were captured at sea off Cape
Cod. | asked Mr. Blackford if he could
tell me whether the salmon were captured
in shore pounds OF in deep water nets
and he replied as follows: ssWe 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, Pc
nobscot and other Eastern rivers. During
November and December we had about
fifteen to twenty fish, weighing from II
to "a lbs. each, that were caught in the
mackerel nets in the vicinity of Province
town 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. l think these
| catches of salmon 90 very far to prove
that the schools of fish are not very far
off from our shores duling 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 riv-
ers where they We're spawned The fish
are remarkable in being in splendid con-
dition and perfect in form and appear
ance.'
My first thought was that these fish tax
en- off Cape Cod We're Merrimac River fish.
| in fact, they must have been from either
the Mcrrimac or Penobscot. unless we in
clude the Hudson and as salmon were
being taken off the mouth of the Maine
River at the same time that they were
being taken off Cape Cod, it is still rea-
sonable to suppose that the latter were
Merrimac fish. 1t would be interesting to
know what food these fish had in them.
A Scotch writer has said that Is per
cent of the salmon taken off the east coast
Tor an Aberdeen salmon preserving estab-
lishment were filled with herring and
that the fishermen could calculate the APP
pearance of the herring off the coast from
condition OF the salmon, and from this
and other similar testimony he argued
that the movements of the salmon at sea
/ were regulated to certain extent by the
movements of the herring schools Sal
mon preservers testify also that salmon
live mainly upon herring in the German
Ocean; but they have been found to have
in their stomachs mussels, sand ellis, smelt,
whiting and shrimps, when taken in Eu-
ropean waters. Mr. John Muwat, of New
Brunswick, a fishery officer of long expert
ence, says that when the Canadian salmon
arrive in the estuaries they are commonly
filled with herrings or mackerel; that they
gorge themselves when they strike the cape
IN schools on the coast but that he has
opened many hundreds OF salmon on the
coast where sand cells are plentiful and
never found one in the stomach OF salmon
All of which may be accepted as evidence
that the salmon do not move along the
coast in one great school, each salmon
river adding its quota, seeking warmer or
colder water, as the case may be, but that
they go Oft the coast sufficiently far to find
schools of herrings OF mackerel, ON which
they feed, be the distance more or less.
That salmon do travel great distances in
the rivers of Holland salmon have been
caught with cod hooks in them which must
have been taken from the deep sea lines of
the Norwegian fishermen, distance of six
or seven hundred, or even more miles.
read of one instance within the year of a
salmon being taken in one place with evil
dence about it that it had come from an
other place, neither of which l can recall
at this moment, although | think it was
in the Baltic, but | distinctly remember
that l figured the distance between the
two places and that it was over /, 900 miles,
The reason given for the journey was
scarcity of food
There is another matter of speculation
which l refer to briefly. For years fish
ermen and fshculturists have been
guessing how many eggs of the salmon
laid in the natural way arrived at matur-
ity in the shape of healthy fish, either
fry or older. Mr.. Alexander Mowat,
a fishery officer in Canada, reports that
he has overturned and examined sal
mon beds on the Restigouche, Prince
Edward Island and St. John rivers, after
the water has receded and left the beds
and the ova to perish, and in all instances
he has not found more than one egg in
fifty that was vitalized. If only two per
cent. of salmon eggs naturally deposited
are fortified, the guesses as to the fry
Matched are very, very wide of the mark.
AS ninety-tive per cent of eggs artifcially
taken are Matched and turned into the