Editor's Note: Loren P. Woods, Curator of 

 Fishes, recently spent six weeks in Hawaii as 

 a member of a marine study trip sponsored 

 by the Shedd Aquarium and led by Mr. 

 William P. Braker, the Aquarium's Assistant 

 Director. Nearly two hundred varieties of 

 fishes were collected on the trip, many of 

 which had never before been included in the 

 Museum's research collections. In this series 

 of brief sketches Mr. Woods describes the 

 different fishing techniques used by the ex- 

 pedition in obtaining these important speci- 

 mens. 



Fish 



Collecting 

 in 

 Hawaii 



There are about 450 species of fishes 

 around the Hawaiian Islands living 

 in depths to one hundred feet. Some of 

 these fishes are abundant and conspicu- 

 ous; others hide and are seldom, if ever, 

 seen or taken by conventional fishing 

 methods. The ancient Hawaiians knew 

 the exact habitat and something of the 

 habits of the many kinds of fishes living 

 in their reefs, and had devised a number 

 of ingenious methods for capturing them. 

 Decoys were used to lure fishes that were 

 especially pugnacious or curious. A va- 

 riety of bag nets, dip nets, weirs, and 

 traps were manipulated or set to inter- 

 cept fishes known to move over a partic- 

 ular place. The use of torch lights, throw 

 nets, nooses, spears, and poison — made 

 by pounding a poisonous weed mixed 

 with sand, so it would sink — procured 

 fishes that were not easily taken by other 

 methods. Hand fishing produced octo- 



Page 6 



puses, shellfish, and spiny lobsters, while 

 hook-and-line fishing was used for the 

 larger offshore fishes. Another method 

 was to block off shallow bays by build- 

 ing walls of coral or lava boulders. The 

 resulting ponds could be opened to the 

 sea at high tide, when the fish moved in- 

 shore, and then closed, trapping the fish 

 so they could be fattened or held until 

 needed. 



Taking these methods as our prece- 

 dent, we employed whatever techniques 

 would produce the variety of fishes de- 

 sired by both the Aquarium and the 

 Museum for their collections. 



The Rocky Fill at Kewalo 



The promontory enclosing Kewalo 

 Basin, on which the U. S. Fish and Wild- 

 life Laboratory is located, is protected 

 by a riprap of irregular, large, cindery, 

 lava blocks. These blocks make a shelf, 



just exposed at low tide and densely cov- 

 ered with a vine-like brown seaweed. A 

 bizarre scorpion fish lives here, the same 

 color as the weeds and so secure in its 

 camouflage that it could be captured by 

 pinching its high fin, as one would pick 

 a butterfly off a flower. Spiny puffers 

 were caught in a dip net by locating the 

 hole in which they were hiding, placing 

 the net in a strategic position and giving 

 the fish a gentle (because of the spines) 

 nudge with the other hand. 



By far the most successful method of 

 catching the colorful butterfly fishes, 

 damsel fishes, tangs, and eels, as well as 

 the blue and white polka dot boxfish, 

 variegated wrasses and bright red and 

 white striped squirrel fishes, is in a large 

 wire trap. These traps are built like a 

 quonset hut, with an opening at one end 

 for fish to enter, and they are baited with 

 broken china, since a dead fish bait at- 



