90 



BULLETIN or THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



not be accounted for from the data at hand, but it appears reasonable to suppose that 

 for some reason the traps were not actually fished. In general, the catches of all 

 species appear to be as good now as they ever were. 



VOLCANO BAY 



In reality Volcano Bay is only an arm of Pavlof Bay and also was first fished 

 intensively in 1918, when traps were driven. Previous to this time it had been fished 

 regularly by seiners since 1911, except for 1913. Up to 1918 the yield had been almost 

 exclusively chums, but after the traps were installed large catches of pinks were made 

 and a few reds and cohos also were taken. As in Pavlof Bay, the catch of king salmon 

 is negligible. The general trend of the catches of all four species is clearly upward. 

 This rise is remarkably constant in the case of the even-year catches of pinks — each 

 catch has been greater than the one preceding and the scries does not even show the 

 effect of the depression of 1921. As usual the catch of pinks in the odd years 

 has been relatively small, although that, too, has been increasing, the catch of 





o 



sr 

 l2i 









Fig. 18. — Catch of red salmon at Sanak 



1927 being over 80,000. In the case of the chums the rise has been less regular, 

 but the present level is distinctly higher than formerly. With the exception of 

 1918 there was no year previous to 1923 in which the catch equaled that of the 

 poorest year since 1923; and the catches of both cohos and reds, while relatively 

 small and subject to wide proportional fluctuations, show a constant tendency to 

 increase. It is especially to be noted that the general tendency here is quite different 

 from that shown by the fishery in Pavlof Bay. Our data are insufficient to show 

 whether this is because the two localities draw upon fairly distinct stocks of salmon 

 orbecauseoffluctuation in the intensity of fishing. Thegeneral tendency for increased 

 catches in Volcano Bay naturally would lead one to infer that the intensity of fishing 

 has increased gradually, probably through improvements in the efficiency of the 

 traps inasmuch as the number of traps remained constant until 1927. 



SANAK ISLAND 



The fishery at Sanak Island has always been a small one, conducted with beach 

 seines, and has produced mainly red salmon. The data for the catch of reds are 

 given graphically in Figure 18, and if our records of the total catch may be relied 



