170 U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



of the records of the United States Fish Commission, up to and 

 including the year 1902, state that "bay seining" supplied most of 

 the commercial fish. The reason for this is obvious. The shallow 

 water of the fishing grounds always has made it easy for crews to 

 drag and handle seines while standing in water only thigh deep. 

 Tn fact, the great efficiency of seining has been the chief objection to 

 this mode of fishing in the opinion of those who have thought that 

 the supply of fish in Texas intercoastal waters was being depleted". 

 Finally, in about 1913 a law against summer seining went into 

 effect, and fishermen were forced to buy and use gill and trammel 

 nets. To-day, although this law is no longer in force, more gill and 

 trammel nets than seines are owned and operated along the coast. 



GUI nets. — Formerly gill nets were unpopular because the high 

 temperature of the water made it necessary to raise them frequently 

 and remove the catch before the fish spoiled, but the modern method 

 of preserving the catch by packing the fish in cracked ice shortly 

 after they are taken makes possible the saving of gilled fish, which 

 in the past would have spoiled soon after being taken from the nets. 

 The present increased use of gill nets is mentioned in the preceding 

 paragraph, but up to 1902 the reports of the United States Fish 

 Commission did not list a single gill net within the waters of the 

 State of Texas. 



Pound nets. — A report of the United States Fish Commission for 

 1890 states that pound nets were not used on the Texas coast be- 

 cause the large fish, such as gars, tarpon, jewfish, and sharks, or 

 predatory animals like the porpoise, tore the netting so frequently 

 that more time was spent in repairing the nets than in fishing. Re- 

 cently, a fisherman tested a pound net in the Gulf of Mexico, but 

 the piles were pulled up and the nets broken, whether by tides or 

 large animals the experimenter could not say. Another attempt will 

 be made with wire mesh. 



Miscellaneous methods. — Besides net fishing, there is a certain 

 amount of line fishing, cast netting, and spearing of flounders. 

 "Gigging" for flounders, as it is called, is carried on extensively at 

 certain seasons of the year, and the catch is disposed of locally. 



COMMERCIAL SPECIES 



The chief commercial species of Texas fish are as follows: 



Bluefish Pomatomus saltatrix. 



Croaker Micropogon undulatus. 



Drum Pogonias cromis. 



Flounder Paralichthys lethostigma, and others. 



Grouper Epinephelus sp. 



Jackfish Caranx hippos. 



Jewfish Epinephelus nigratus. 



Mackerel___ Scomberomorus maculatus. 



Mullet Mugil cephalus. 



Pigfish_ _ Orthopristis chrysopterus. 



Pompano Trachynotus carolinus. 



Rednsh Sciaenops ocellatus. 



Red snapper Lutjanus sp. 



Rockfish Roccus lineatus. 



Sand trout , Cynoscion noth us. 



Sheepshead Archosargus probatocephalus. 



Trout Cynoscion nebulosus 



Whiting Menticirrhus sp. 



