Previously, vThen I was aboard the fishing vessel Fukuchi Itaru Noo 5 from Yaizu, 

 I had the crew arrange skipjack on deck. Those fish with pointed snouts were 

 placed on the starboard side of the bridge and those with rounded snouts were 

 placed on the port side„ I declared those fish on the starboard to be males and 

 those on port to be females, and had them opened. There was practically no error 

 in my selection and the fishermen were amazed. I believe that this is a simple 

 method for distinguishing between male and female skipjack. 



Takeda ; It certainly is convenient to learn of such a method. Amonf tunas, the 

 most commonly known is the bluefin tuna which visits our waters; relatively less is 

 known df the yellowfin and big-eyed tuna. I have heard that in Kiay and June, the 

 waters between Formosa and Okinawa become black vsith sperm emitted by blue fin 

 tuna. I was in Shikoku for a long time and I observed fishermen catching skipjack 

 and tuna with well-developed egfs between lyo and Tosa during the same time of the 

 year. In waters adjacent to the Nicobar Islands off the Malay Peninsula, about 

 70% of the tuna carry mature eggs between November and March. I was told that the 

 large spawning sizes were caught on long lines. This method limits the propagation 

 of tuna and skipjack so that fishing was restricted to pole and line fishing. I 

 concluded this period to be the spawning -season. Skipjack weighing from 200 momme 

 (1.6$ lbs.) to 250 momme (2»06 lbs.) are caught near Japan between May and June, 

 Small skipjack such as these can sometimes be caught in Borneo. The smallest fish 

 range from 60 to 70 momme (.5 to .58 lbs.). I believe it is possible to catch 

 even smaller sizes if fishing methods were changed and if fishing were done parti- 

 cularly for this purpose. 



Kanai ; How many dried skipjack sticks can be obtained from a large skipjack carry- 

 ing mature eggs? 



Takeda : Four sticks can be obtained from the larger fish, 



Kanai ; Not long ago, I saw what I thought to be a dolphin between the Philippines 

 and Borneo. However, according to the ship's captain, this fish was a large skip- 

 jack from which eight instead of four sticks could have been obtained. 



Takeda: The large fish are tuna from which eight dried sticks called " renga-bushi" 

 rTN:''brick-stickrfj can be made. ?Vhat you mistooh for a dolphin was probably a 

 Wia. The largest skipjack weigh about /^ kan (33.08 lbs.); those in Borneo, two 

 kan (16.54 lbs.). 



Kawakami i A three and a half kan (28.94 lb.) skipjack was once caught at Saipan. 



Marukawa : Mr. Kawahara, won't you say something? 



Kawahara : We frequently found skipjack with eggs between March and May. However, 

 we did not report on the size of efgsor fish. 



It seems that skipjack carry matured eggs regardless of body size. Eggs were 

 never extruded when pressure was applied to the belly of skipjack immediately after 

 capture. We did find, however, ovaries which emitted eggs through light pressure 

 after these were removed from the fish. 



We occasionally caught young skipjack up to about 3 sun (3.6 inches) in length. 

 We tried to find juveniles measuring 1 sun (1.2 inches) in length and usually 

 examined the stomachs of skipjack, tuna, and other fish in search of these young 

 skipjack. Fish containing many small specimens were found, but we couldn't tt^ll 

 whether these young fish were skipjack. 



