446 REPORT CF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



must have been inclosed in the net. They formed a solid mass reaching 

 several yards from the shore, and filling the net two or three feet deep. 

 If I should say twenty thousand pounds, I do not think it would be 

 exaggerating. For some reason or other, my method of confining and 

 capturing the salmon has been spoken of disparagingly ; but if anything 

 more simple, more natural, or more effective can be devised, or anything 

 contrived on a larger scale, I can only say I should like to see it. 



The seining for spawning-fish was usually done at night, and what 

 fish were needed for the next day were thrown into small corrals intended 

 for their temporary confinement. The spawning was done under a little 

 brush-camp erected just where the seine is hauled ashore. The salmon 

 were very abundant in the McCloud Eiver this year, apparently more 

 so than last year, although our conjectures on this point could not of 

 course be verified. Young salmon a few inches long were very plenti- 

 ful, as also were trout of all sizes. There was a large mixture of grilse 

 among the older salmon. These were found very good eating, even up 

 to the time of spawning. Occasionally, we captured a fresh river sal- 

 mon, having a bright silvery surface, and scales looking exactly as if he 

 had just left the sea. These fish were all very large, and all males. 

 They were very rare, perhaps one in a thousand. One much-disputed 

 point about the McCloud Eiver salmon was settled this year by the 

 presence of the dam. The vexed question has been whether the salmon 

 ascending the McCloud River to spawn ever returned to the sea. Both 

 sides of the question have been warmly advocated ; the strongest point 

 urged by the affirmative side being that the yearly run of salmon could 

 not be kept up if all the spawning-fish died at the spawning-grounds, 

 and none went to the sea to return the following year. Whatever may 

 be the merits of the arguments advanced on either side, the fact has 

 been proved this year that the spawning-salmon do not return to the 

 sea. The proof is this : Our dam formed an impassable barrier to the 

 return of the salmon which had ascended the river to spawn. Tens of 

 thousands, not to say hundreds of thousands, which would perhaps be 

 nearer the truth, passed the line of our barricade before it was com- 

 pleted. Not one of these salmon repassed that point on their return to 

 the sea. If their habit had been to return seaward after spawning, they 

 would have crowded up to the upper side of the barricade, as the 

 ascending salmon did to the lower side of it two months previous ; but, 

 instead of this, not one was observed to even show the least disposition 

 to pass it, although thousands floated down dead against the dam. 



What, then, must be said of their disposition to return to the sea ? 



The only conclusion that we can come to is that they have no such 

 disposition ; that they are not accustomed to do so, and that they all 

 die in the upper waters, which serve for their breeding-grounds; which 

 last statement is confirmed by the fact that at the end of October a live 

 salmon can hardly be found in the whole length of the McCloud River 

 anywhere. 



