It can therefore be considered that the albacore catch in this sea area 

 does not show extremely great variation. 



The albacore also sometimes penetrate into comparatively enclosed 

 waters, and the catch rates become fairly high in such places as the South 

 China Sea, west of the Bashi Strait and southeast of Hainan Island. We 

 have no data on the sizes of fish from these waters, but they are said to 

 be large albacore. 



(3) Grounds of Tropical Seas 



In January there are already signs that the abundance of fish is 

 declining. In general the catch rates are lower, but from time to time 

 there are still cases of rates of 1.0 or more. The appearances of alba- 

 core are still more conspicuous around the current boundary between 

 the Equatorial Countercurrent and the South Equatorial Current south of 

 Palau thaji in other areas. As the size composition in table 15 shows, 

 the albacore from this sea area are somewhat smaller than they are at 

 10°N. to 25°N. 



Table 15. --Size composition of 

 albacore taken south of Palau 

 in 1952. Actual numbers offish 

 measured; weights in kan 



Table 16 shows the frequency of catch rates by numbers of days' 

 operations. 



Table 16. --Catch rate frequency south of Palau (south of 3 N, , 

 130°-140°E.) 



The proportion of days' fishing in which no albacore were taken 

 at all is 50 percent. Compared with similar data for waters east of the 



78 



