The albacore began to be regarded as of some importance around 1930, 

 that is at about the time when it began to be exported to A-nerica as frozen 

 fish or canned in oil. Before that time in Japan, the albacoic was extremely- 

 unpopular, having a poor flavor when dried and being deficient xn fat and 

 tasteless when eaten fresho The fishermen avoided schools of albacore, 

 preferring to pursue the skipjack schools, and the price of this fish was 

 very low, sometimes as low as 30 sen for a fish of about 2$ pounds weight„ 

 Now with the sudden change in circumstances, the price of this fish has 

 gone so high that many fishermen have the taking of albacore as their chief 

 objective, to such an extent that whether or not they have a good skipjack 

 season depends largely on how many albacore they take during the course 

 of the season. This refers to the so-called summer fishery, in which the 

 albacore are taken by pole and line along with the skipjack, the winter 

 fishery being that in which they are taken on tuna longlines together with 

 spearfishes, big-eyed tuna, and yellowfin tuna„ Ihe catch figures for the 

 winter fishery have shown a tendency to increase steadily from year to year, 

 however, the catch in the summer fishery in recent years has been gradually 

 declining up until 193b, in which year the fishery showed renewed activity. 

 The problems facing this fishery, the product of which occupies such an 

 important place among our fisheries exports, should be the subject of basic 

 investigations designed to clarify the migrational patterns and the reasons 

 for fluctuations in the catch of this fisho Ihe purpose of the present 

 paper, like the previously published paper on the skipjack, is to put on 

 record for future reference and for the information of fishermen in this 

 prefecture, data from the researches of this Station and other data extracted 

 from reports of the national Fisheries Experiment Station concerning the 

 relationship between fishing conditions and oceanographic conditions in 

 the albacore fisheryo 



lo Fluctuations in fishing conditions o 



ao Fishing seasons 



The fishing seasons are clesuply divided into a so-called 

 summer fishery and a winter fisheryo The summer fishery is 

 carried on from the latter part of April to July, its peak being 

 from about the middle of May to the middle of June„ The catch 

 during this period almost invariably determines the success of 

 the summer fishery., The winter fishery extends from the middle 

 of October to early April, its peak being from December to 

 February o 



bo Fishing conditions in the summer and winter fisherieso 



As the following table shows, the summer fishery had year 

 by year shown a decline in its total catch until 1930, in which 

 year it took a turn for the bettero The catch of the winter 

 fishery has, on the other hand, shown a tendency to increase from 



