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.