AD U. 8S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
HERRING 
Investigation of the herring fisheries of Alaska was continued in 
1938 by E. H. Dahlgren. Mr. Kolloen, who was assigned as a perma- 
nent assistant in this work beginning in July, carried out the field 
work of catch-record collection and of obtaining data on the size and 
age composition of the populations in the Kodiak and Prince 
William Sound areas during the season. 
Previous tagging experiments have established the fact that, while 
the herring populations of Southeastern Alaska. are divided into a 
series of separate populations, there are certain areas, notably at 
Warren Channel and at the west coast of Kuiu Island, where two of 
the major populations intermingle on the feeding grounds. The 
electronic detector was operated to search the fish taken for frozen 
bait from the Sitka spawning area during the spring. Only two 
tags were recovered, owing to the decline in the age class which had 
supported the fishery for the previous 4 years. The younger fish, 
which were available to the bait fishermen this spring, had not been 
available for tagging during the previous seasons. Nevertheless, the 
recovery of these two tags, affixed in previous years at this spawning 
area, definitely established the fact that the herring return to the 
same grounds year after year to spawn. 
A controlled tagging experiment was carried on at the station at 
Little Port Walter in order to determine the maximum size of tag 
which a herring may carry without causing undue mortality. If it 
is proven that a tag of considerably increased mass can be carried, 
the difficulty of recovery will be greatly reduced. After an initial 
heavy mortality the herring appear to survive with a minimum of 
loss. However, the mortality increases in direct ratio to size of tag, 
with the largest tag showing an 87 percent mortality as compared to 
34 percent for the smallest and 20 percent for the controls at the 
end of a 2-month period. The experiment is being continued through 
the winter with the watchman maintaining the records. 
The Southeastern fishery declined to an all-time low since its 
great expansion in 1927. Since that year the fishery has depended, 
In some seasons almost exclusively, on the population which spawns 
in the vicinity of Sitka and which migrates during the summer to 
Cape Ommaney to support that fishery, and to Warren Island and 
the west coast of Kuiu Island, where it mingles with the population 
which spawns at Craig. Studies of the age composition of this 
population show the almost total failure of three successive brood 
years; that of 1932, 1933, and 1934. These failures, together with a 
too intensive fishery, caused a decline of this stock to a dangerously 
low level. 
The measure used in evaluating the abundance of this population 
is a comparison of the catch per unit of gear per day’s fishing, with 
the average catch per day’s fishing established over a 9-year period. 
In deriving these indices the fleet has been divided into two groups 
(those of over 35 net tons and those under this capacity) to minimize 
the difference in efficiency of the larger and smaller vessels. The 
index for the 1938 season for the large vessels was 35, as compared 
to 71 for 1937 and 140 for the optimum season of 1932. The indices 
for the smaller vessels were 41 for 1938 as compared to 75 for 1937 
and 164 for the optimum 1932 season. On the basis of these findings, 
