Trolling patrols were made along the 

 longline to compare the catch of albacore by the 

 two types of gear. Since fog frequently made 

 it inadvisable to venture more than a quarter 

 of a mile from the longline, the patrols were 

 limited to 3 hours to avoid the possibility of un- 

 duly interfering with the fishing of the shallow 

 hooks of the longline gear. 



Thirteen albacore were taken during the 

 212 hours of trolling in water having surface 

 tennperatures between 52° to 72°F. There were 

 two catches of two albacore each. The others 

 were taken singly, even though athorough sweep 

 of the area was made after each strike. 



Seven sets of shallow longline gear were 

 made from the Smith at the positions indicated 

 in figure 1 and in tables 1 and 7. All longline 

 sets either preceded or followed a gill -net set. 

 Each consisted of 20 baskets of 12-hook gear 

 with a buoy on the mainline at each dropper, so 

 that the fishing depth depended solely on the 

 length of the dropper. Each basket had three 

 12-, three 24-, three 48-, and three 96-foot 

 droppers, arranged as shown in figure 2. The 

 gear was set at daylight and allowed to fish a 

 nninimum of 6 hours. 



Only two albacore were taken on the 

 longline. Both were taken at station 67{42°48'N., 

 175°03'W.), one on a 24- and the other on a 48- 

 foot dropper. Both were taken within the nnixed 

 layer; the thermocline depth was 50 feet. The 

 longline catches are summarized in table 7. 



No difficulties were encountered in set- 

 ting the longline, but it was difficult to retrieve. 



The shallowness of the line and the varying 

 depth of the droppers made it very liable todis- 

 tortion by differences in local ocean currents 

 and by the struggles of hooked fishes. Large 



curves usually fornned in the mainline, and at 

 several of the stations one or more of the end 

 baskets doubled back on the mainline. There 

 was considerably more tangling of the droppers 

 on the naainline than occurs with conventional 

 longline gear. An unsuccessful attempt to over- 

 come this difficulty by using smaller floats, 

 which would just keep the line afloat, was made 

 at station 90. Hooked sharks sounded with the 

 line, and the resulting mixture of shallow and 

 deep sections of the mainline and added hori- 

 zontal distortion only increased the difficulty of 

 retrieving the line . 



Table 8 gives the length frequency distri- 

 butions of the cilbacore caught by gill net from 

 the Smith. The lengths of albacore taken on 

 troll lines and longline are given in tables 5 and 

 7, respectively. 



The crew of the Paragon completed the 

 1, 200-shackle contract requirement by fishing 

 30 sets of 40 shackles each. The first set was 

 made on July 26, 1958, and the final set on 

 August 30, 1958. The positions of the sets are 

 shown in figure 3. The 30 sets were completed 

 in only 35 nights largely because it was possible 

 to work from the vessel in winds up to approx- 

 imately 25 knots. Of tlie five nights not fished, 

 only three were lost because of bad weather at 

 setting time. The other two were lost because 

 the seas which resulted from the 40-50 knot 

 winds that developed during set No. 21, on the 

 night of August 17, 1958, rolled and tangled the 



Figure 2. --Schematic view of a basket of longline gear used on 

 Hugh M. Smith cruise 46. 



