136 DESCRIPTION OF IMPORTANT FISHERIES AND THEIR PRODUCTS 



A variety of fishing nets, such as the lampara net, various ring nets, 

 purse seines, and dip nets, were put to use. This increased the tonnage 

 landed, and in 1933, 70 milUon pounds of mackerel were brought in by 

 the mackerel boats in California. The record year was 1935, when more 

 than 147 million pounds were taken. Of this tonnage, the largest amount 

 by far was delivered by the purse seine fleet. A new method of mackerel 

 fishing, the so-called scoop fishing, was evolved by 1939. This method, 

 a modification of striker fishing, consisted of alluring the fish with chum, 

 but instead of catching the fish with artificial lures bearing barbless hooks, 

 the fish was scooped on board with a scoop net or a brail. This method 

 is still practiced to a limited extent, although more than 80 per cent of 

 the total catch is accounted for by the purse seiners and lampara boats. 



The bulk of the mackerel catch is canned and used for human con- 

 sumption; some is canned and sold as pet food, and 5 to 10 per cent of 

 the total catch is still sold unprocessed as fresh fish. 



Methods of Processing. The processing methods in use for the Pacific 

 mackerel are much like those employed for the sardine. When arriving 

 at the dockside, the mackerel is either brailed or pumped onto the ele- 

 vated conveyor which brings the fish into the cannery. Here the mackerel 

 is weighed in weighing buckets holding about 500 pounds. 



After weighing, the mackerel is flumed into the holding tanks where 

 it is held, chilled in sea water, until enough has accumulated to begin 

 the cutting. The cutting follows the same procedure as that employed 

 for sardine (q.v.), and the fish are finally flumed onto the packing table 

 where cannery workers fill the cans by hand. The machine which some- 

 times is used for filling sardines into 1-pound tall cans is also occasionally 

 used for mackerel. After leaving the packing table, or packing machine, 

 the filled, open cans go through the exhaust box where they are heated 

 by live steam as they slowly move through the box. 



The Jack Mackerel Industry. The j ack mackerel ( Trachunus symmetricus) 

 has been fished commercially for many years since it was first reported 

 in the commercial fish catch of California as early as 1888. Statistics on 

 landings were, however, not available until 1926 when the jack mackerel 

 and the Pacific mackerel were reported separately in the statistics kept 

 by the California Fish and Game Division. The jack mackerel became 

 of importance commercially toward the end of the thirties when the 

 rapidly failing sardine and Pacific mackerel fisheries forced the industry 

 to look for substitutes for these two fish species. The jack mackerel 

 population is large and is distributed along the west coast of North 

 America from British Columbia southward to Acapulco, Mexico. The 

 center of fishing for jack mackerel is in Southern California, San Pedro 

 in particular, with smaller landings at Monterey, Port Hueneme, and 



