flows south through the Molucca Strait, the two of them joining southeast of Celebes and flowing 

 into the Arafura Sea region. The current flowing southward through the Macassar Strait from the 

 Celebes Sea region remains as it was in the period from July to September, but its force 

 becomes extremely weak. 



The sea is generally calm in this area throughout the year, and it is believed that 

 there will be no interference with operations because of bad weather. As is shown below, the 

 fishing is extraordinarily good and this fact, together with the good climatic conditions, makes 

 this an excellent fishing ground. 



The skipjack and tuna fishing grounds of this area have a rather deep relationship to 

 the Japanese. Around 1930 the late Mr. K. Hara, who was at that tinne a representative in the 

 Diet for Kagoshima Prefecture, settled in Amboina with a number of fishernnen from Kagoshima 

 and started a skipjack fishery based there. This party had two fishing vessels which they oper- 

 ated from Menado in the Celebes and other places. This enterprise was affected by the deterio- 

 ration of the international situation accompanying the Manchurian Incident, which occurred soon 

 after, it was subjected to the opposition of the Netherlands East Indies government, and it 

 finally ended in failure. Before the war, Japanese fishermen based at Menado carried on opera- 

 tions to some extent in the Molucca Strait area. 



In this sea area, as in other areas of the south, there is a snriall-scale fishery 

 carried on by natives using dug-out canoes. In order to supply military needs during World War 

 II a large number of Japanese fishing vessels were nnobilized in this region to carry on skipjack 

 and tuna fishing, but no concrete data concerning their success remain. At any rate, this may 

 well be considered a completely untouched fishing ground. 



Investigations in this area have been carried on by the Shonan Maru, Zuih5 Maru, 

 and Kiyo Maru. The mother ship-type tuna fleet of the Tobu Suisan Connpany also operated exper- 

 imentally in this area. All of the data except those from the mothership-type operation are 

 extremely fragmentary. Consequently there are many points at which these data are inadequate 

 for assessing the value of fishing grounds in this area. The following table presents a summa- 

 rization of these data. 



Table 18. --Fishing conditions in the Banda Sea, 

 Flores Sea, and the Molucca Strait 

 area 



Note: This table includes data from mothership-type operations. 



As the table shows, rather high values are indicated for the catch rates, and it 

 appears that this area is a very superior tuna longlining ground. 



The data are notably uneven in temporal distribution and therefore it is not possible 

 to examine thoroughly the seasonal changes in the fishing situation, however, a comparison is 

 shown in the following table. 



53 



