Mount Desert Island in 35 fathoms.

Some years ago, on May 22, one of the crew of the schooner _Telephone_,
of Orland, Me., while fishing for cod on German Bank, caught a 10-pound
salmon. German Bank lies about 50 miles southeast of Mount Desert
Island and has 65 to 100 fathoms of water.




Destruction of salmon by seals.

Seals are known to kill a great many salmon in Penobscot Bay and
the lower river. They enter and leave the weirs and traps without
difficulty and cause great annoyance to the fishermen. When a seal
enters a net, the fish are frightened and usually become meshed; the
seal may then devour them at its leisure. The initial bite usually
includes the salmon's head.

Fishermen in some places report a noticeable increase in seals in the
past few years, and a consequent increase in damage done to the salmon
fishery. The State pays a bounty of $1 each for seal scalps, which
serves to keep the seals somewhat in check, although the sagacity of
the animals makes it difficult to approach them with a rifle and to
secure them when shot. Within a few years some weir fishermen have been
obliged at times to patrol the waters in the vicinity of their nets, in
order to prevent depredations. In the Cape Rosier region, where some
salmon trap fishing is done, seals were very troublesome in the early
part of the season of 1896. Mr. George Ames, who set three traps in
1896 and took about 100 salmon, had knowledge of 13 other salmon that