92 



THE MIGRATION AND CONSERVATION OF SALMON 



salmon. It must have been seven or eight 

 hundred miles offshore. 



Then a young man who had been in fish- 

 ery work but was, at the time, an officer on 

 a boat sailing to the Orient, stated to me 

 that he once saw a school of red salmon 

 several hundred miles offshore. Fisher- 

 men who are used to observing salmon at 

 sea can tell the species by the way they 

 break water. 



Sockeye are feeding in many places the 

 year around. Just south of the Alaska 

 Peninsula most of the red salmon are feed- 

 ing. 



Behavior of Salmon in the Sea 



Mr. Menzies. On the European side, in- 

 cluding even the Baltic, there are two sets 

 of circumstances. The fish follow two en- 

 tirely different sets of conditions, one set 

 when they are on their main migration 

 coming to the coast, another set when they 

 have approached comparatively close, say 

 to within 50 miles of the river they are go- 

 ing up. So far as we see, after they have 

 gone more or less directly to within 40 or 

 50 (usually 20 or 30) miles of the river 

 they will ascend, they then go straight up- 

 stream if the conditions of the river are 

 suitable. I have some evidence about that. 

 "When the river conditions are not such as 

 to tempt them upstream then they hang 

 about the coast. 



In the migrations within 40 or 50 miles, 

 they do respond undoubtedly to certain 

 local conditions. They either go to the lee 

 shore or they will go down wind along the 

 coast. If the wind is blowing on to the 

 shore they will come quite close; proved 

 beyond a doubt by the catch of salmon 

 along the shore. If the wind is offshore 

 they move away from the coast. If the 

 flood tide is running east they run east. 

 On the ebb tide they will come back west, 

 and that movement is more than merely 

 drifting with the tide ; especially from the 

 last week of June until August. They are 

 moving at a faster rate than the rate the 

 oceanographers say the tide is moving. 



Mr. Cowie. The movement is with the 

 tide. 



Mr. Menzies. But at a greater rate than 

 the tide. They do not go parallel with the 

 shore, they move off and on. And they 

 must move off and on because in certain 

 parts of the east coast of Scotland bag-nets 

 extend for a half mile into the sea. 



In a certain bay there are ranges of eight 

 bag-nets, each bag-net 100 yards long, set 

 with 100 or 150 yards between each. These 

 nets fish approximately equally well. Occa- 

 sionally you will get one inshore net better 

 than some of the others. If the fish did not 

 move off and onshore it would be impossible 

 for a bay to be fished like that and to pay 

 for the gear. 



Dr. Belding. Do the outer or in the 

 inner nets catch the greater number of 

 salmon ? 



Mr. Menzies. The outer one may catch 

 the same as any of the others. 



Dr. Belding. In the Bay Chaleur the 

 nets near the shore usually catch the 

 greater number of salmon, but the reverse 

 may occur in certain localities. 



Dr. Huntsman. In trying to apply his 

 ideas to our conditions, I am not quite clear 

 as to how Mr. Menzies distinguished be- 

 tween the two behaviors. How do you 

 know when the salmon are approaching the 

 coast or the river on their directed **main 

 migration" and when going away from as 

 well as toward it in undirected local move- 

 ments ? 



Mr. Menzies. I do not say anything 

 about going away, when they are not on 

 their main migration. By correlating the 

 fishing experience with the marking experi- 

 ence we know. 



Dr. Huntsman. Is it that in marking at 

 a certain place you get fish which subse- 

 quent facts of recapture show are there for 

 some time ? Then you must have both 

 types of behavior there together. Certain 

 fish caught at a place behave differently 

 from other fish caught at the same place. 



Mr. Menzies. You get a certain propor- 

 tion of fish recaptured at the place of mark- 

 ing after two or three weeks. 



Dr. Huntsman. Then the differentia- 

 tion between the two behaviors is based 

 upon where the fish are recaptured, not 



