MARINE FISHERIES OF TEXAS 171 



While the tastes of the trade run chiefly to trout, redfish, and 

 mackerel, quantities of so-called "inferior" species (black drum es- 

 pecially) are now being caught and shipped. 3 The Gulf "pike" 

 (Centropomus undecimalis) is sometimes abundant around the passes 

 farther south and also is very popular with the market. According 

 to information received, the sheepshead, once very abundant, never 

 has been appreciated by the public, and the mullet, so prized in the 

 southeastern section of the country, is not fished for commercially 

 at all, although it literally swarms in all of the shallow bays along 



the coast. 



HISTORY OF THE FISHERIES 



The present status of the Texas fisheries can be understood best 

 in the light of their past development. However, the records of the 

 fisheries are exceedingly meager. The only sources of information 

 concerning the yield in past years are publications of the Bureau of 

 Fisheries and of the Bureau of the Census and the State commis- 

 sioners' reports. 



Records of the Texas fisheries have appeared in various reports 

 of the Bureau of Fisheries since 1880. They have been col- 

 lected by systematic surveys conducted at considerable intervals by 

 special agents sent into the field to interview personally dealers 

 and fishermen throughout the geographic section canvassed; for 

 example, the Gulf States. The most important surveys were con- 

 ducted in 1880, 1890, 1902, 1918, and 1923. 



The occasional nature of such canvasses limits the usefulness of 

 the records in studying depletion, for it is obvious that if statistics 

 are made available only at intervals of several years there is 

 relatively slight possibility that a normal year was selected in which 

 to make a canvass of the fisheries. Hence, the fluctuations in yield, 

 as shown by the records, may not represent fairly the general trend of 

 the fisheries unless the trend is well marked and a long period of time 

 is considered. Furthermore, the method by which the records 

 necessarily are collected makes it impossible to secure complete infor- 

 mation in all cases, for the data consist of dealers' and fishermen's 

 records or their estimates of the preceding year's catch. The uni- 

 formity of the methods of collection, however, makes the figures 

 comparable, and we believe that the statistics given here are of real 

 significance. 



The statistics for 1908 were collected by the Bureau of the Census, 

 which used a form virtually identical with that employed by the 

 Bureau of Fisheries. However, there was a larger number of can- 

 vassers in the field than took part in previous surveys, and it is 

 probably because of this that the 1908 record is not always strictly 

 comparable with the records of the Bureau of Fisheries. 



The records of total fish yield obtained ffbm the Texas Game, Fish, 

 and Oyster Commission are compiled from tax receipts published in 

 the annual reports of the department. Commercial fish caught in 

 Texas intercoastal waters are subject to a tax of 20 cents per 100 

 pounds. The catches are reported monthly from daily records sup- 

 posed to be kept by the fishermen, and payment is made to the 

 deputy commissioners or to the central office at Austin. Hence, the 

 amount of tax collected depends upon the honesty of the fishermen 



3 See Statistical Bulletin No. 670, U. S. Bureau of Fisheries, for further details. 



