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Back Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 1929 (For 2004 Acknowledgements, Click Here) 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. |