Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine

Maurice Lubee's Ridge .-This lies outside of New Ledge (Platts Bank) 47 miles SSE. from the lightship at Portland. Extending in an ENE. and WSW. direction, its boundaries are somewhat indefinite. It is perhaps 8 miles long by 3 miles wide and has depths from 95 to 110 fathoms over a bottom consisting mostly of mud.

Cusk are plentiful here in the spring, with a few in the fall. Cod are taken all the year around, the Spring school being the largest. Hake are most numerous In the spring and fall months, and haddock are not common but are most numerous in winter.

Apparently the abundance of cod on this ground is due to the great quantity of shrimps and soft-shelled crabs found on the muddy bottom and on the rocks that compose this ground. There seem to be many of these deep-water grounds between and about the shoaler grounds, as near Cashes, Fippenies, and Jeffreys, which apparently serve as fairways over which the schools of hake, cod, and cusk, move from Georges Bank into the Gulf of Maine in the spring of the year.