PART X III. 



THE SALMON FISHING AND CANNING INTERESTS OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 

 By DAVID STARE JORDAN AND CHARLES H. GILBERT. 



1. THE SALMON FISHERIES OF CALIFORNIA AND OF ORE- 

 GON SOUTH OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER. 



1. THE SACRAMENTO EIVER. 



PISHING TOWNS. 



VALLEJO. The regular salmon fishermen rarely come down the Sacramento as far as Vallejo, 

 but there are three salmon-traps in the river at this point. There are also one or two fishermen 

 catching sturgeon (Acipenscr trammontanus) with hook and line. 



The traps do not pay at present, the salmon in the river having decreased in number since 

 they were first introduced. 



A fisherman at Vallejo, Mr. A. Fiirst, claims to have introduced the first trap pound-net in 

 San Francisco Bay in 1861. It was of the same shape as those in use at present, and was, he says, 

 modeled after one formerly used for catching whitetish in Lake Erie. 



A long " leader" runs from the shore to the opening in a heart-shaped inclosure, which, in turn, 

 leads into the trap proper. Pound-nets in the Sacramento never paid, even when fishing was at 

 its best. The expense of keeping them up is too great. In the fall, when water is low in the river, 

 the water becomes salt at Vallejo and barnacles entirely cover the meshes of the nets. 



Mr. Fiirst has been on the Sacramento since 1852, and thinks that salmon are not nearly so 

 abundant in the river as formerly. He thinks that all kinds of fish are becoming scarcer in the 

 neighborhood of San Francisco, and that even out at the Farallones, fishermen have to put out 

 five times as many lines to load a boat as they formerly did. He states that prior to 1866 the fish- 

 ing in the bay and on the river used to be very good. Men used to go out and make sometimes as 

 high as $100 a night in herring fishing. Since 1S66, fishing has fallen off very fast. Pound-nets 

 now cannot catch one-tenth of what they used to do. He is greatly impressed with the destruct- 

 iveness of seals and sea-lions. They run up the river and take the salmon from the gill-nets, leav- 

 ing nothing but the heads. He has even seen seals go into a trap and take fish out. 



The incoming run of salmon is first met by the fishermen near the mouth of the river. Dur- 

 ing the last of the season they can be caught as high up the river as nets can be worked. 



SAN PABLO. Xo fishermen work in the vicinity of San Pablo, but there are six orseven Chinese 

 companies on the bay southwest of San Pablo engaged in the shrimp business, the methods being 

 precisely like those employed by the Chinese colonies about San Francisco. 



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