"zero-catch" trips decrease as catch increases, as might be 

 expected. From the sketchy data at hand, it appears that, in 

 a good year, they may account for about 10 percent of the 

 trips made. In a poor year, such as 1957, the ships may 

 catch fish on only two trips out of three. 



As has been mentioned, fewer and fewer young men are 

 entering the fishing industry. Some of the active fishermen 

 quit and seek shoreside employment; others become too old 

 for the hard seafaring life. The problem of attrition is 

 acute, if expansion of the industry is considered. In 1959, 

 Uchida says, the small vessels averaged 8.4 men hooking per 

 trip; by 1960 the average had sunk to 6.9. Large vessels 

 presented the same picture. In 1950 they had an average of 

 10.4 men hooking per trip; by 1960 the average was down 

 to 7.4. Interestingly, this decrease in manpower was not 

 directly reflected in the catch rate, for during that period 

 the fishermen switched to a more productive fishing tech- 

 nique. Formerly, the man swung a skipjack tuna aboard 

 and caught it beneath his arm to release the hook. In the 

 1950's most fishermen changed to a more rapid, but far more 

 tiring, method of fishing: they flipped the fish aboard and 

 let the line go momentarily slack so that the writhing fish 

 shook itself free, and then tossed the line back in the water. 

 The work is backbreaking. Since unbruised fish command a 

 premium in the fresh fish market, some skipjack tuna are 

 Etill landed by the older method, but most are not. However 

 it is done, pole-and-line fishing (fig. 6) is hard. It is a craft 

 ^hat is often passed down through the generations, from 

 father to son. 



FIGURE 5. The location ond copture of smoll boirftshes take much of 

 the time of the hfowaiion skipjack tuna fishermen. The most success- 

 ful bait is the nehu, o local onchovy. Here crew members on on 

 eiperimentol fishing expedition to the Leeward Islands seine the 

 shollow waters of a lagoon for bait. The Leeward Islands, consisting 

 of atolls ond isoloted rocks, extend northwestward from Hawaii in a 

 long arc reaching olmost to the international dote line. 



FIGURE 6. Fishermen oboord the reseorch vessel CHARLES H. 

 GILBERT bring in skipjack tuna for experimental studies ashore. Their 

 techniques ore essentially those of the Howoiion skipjack tuna industry. 

 The number of skilled pole-and-line fishermen m Hawaii has declined 

 drastically during recent decades. 



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