388 U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



DISTRIBUTION 



The Pacific cod occasionally is found as far south as Cape Flattery 

 on the Washington coast. From Puget Sound north to southeast 

 Alaska they are said to be more common, although in no part of this 

 region is a commercial fishery maintained for them. A few are 

 taken by the halibut fishermen and marketed under the name of 

 " gray cod." In southeast Alaska, in early years, a small fishery 

 was maintained in and adjacent to Chatham Strait, but nothing 

 has been done here of recent years. Cod in abundance are not to 

 be found until the Portlock Bank is reached. From here to Akutan 

 Pass cod are very abundant, and probably will be found in con- 

 siderable abundance along the Aleutian Chain beyond the pass. In 

 Bering Sea, between Unimak Pass and Bristol Bay, are to be found 

 several large and important banks adjacent to Unimak Island and 

 the Peninsula. They have been reported as far north as St. Law- 

 rence Island in Bering Sea, but none have been reported in the 

 Arctic Ocean. Edgar O. Campbell, 6 a school-teacher for the United 

 States Bureau of Education, on St. Lawrence Island, in a letter 

 dated September 21, 1909, has the following to say as to the presence 

 of cod around the island : 



A few codfish feed here and are caught every year from July to October, 

 but not in any appreciable numbers except every third to fifth year. This year 

 promises to be a good one, although the Eskimos are so timid they will not go 

 out for more than a half mile from shore in their skin canoes.. Some years 

 the fish stay until in November and great numbers of them are caught by the 

 ice as the sea freezes over. How do you suppose this happens? I have sup- 

 posed that, as the top of the sea coats over with a slushy soft ice, the cod, for 

 some reason or other, it may be for air, jump up through the ice and fall on 

 the surface, their weight not being sufficient to carry them below into water 

 again. At any rate they soon freeze and, as soon as the ice is solid enough 

 to walk on, the Eskimo bring them home in great piles, like cordwood. This 

 has happened twice since we came in 1901. In such years the fox catch is 

 sure to be light, for the fox are so well fed they are wary of prepared bait. 



On the Asiatic shore cod have been reported as far north as Cape 

 Chaplin, East Siberia, while they have been found as far south as 

 Hakodate in Japan. They are most abundant in the Okhotsk Sea. 



SIZE 



A very erroneous idea of the size of Pacific cod seems to be preva- 

 lent in certain works on ichthyology. Even as late as 1907 Evermann 

 and Goldsborough 7 state : " We have no record of any large ex- 

 amples of this cod from the Pacific, where it perhaps does not reach 

 a weight exceeding 15 or 20 pounds." Bean 8 reports having seen 

 many that weighed not less than 30 pounds caught on the inshore 

 banks, where the cod are notably smaller than those found on the 

 offshore banks. He also quotes reports from others as to cod weigh- 

 ing from 20 to 50 pounds. 



I spent the summer of 1913 at the Pirate Cove station of the 

 Union Fish Co. During the greater part of the time no snappers 



8 Mr. Campbell had written for information as to how the natives could best catch cod 

 for their own use. 



7 The Fishes of Alaska, bv B. W. Evermann and B. L. Goldsborough. Bulletin, U. S. 

 Bureau of Fisheries, Vol. XXVI, 1906, p. 348. (1907.) 



8 The Cod Fisherv of Alaska, by Tarleton H. Bean. The Fisheries and Fishery Indus- 

 tries of the United States, Pt. IT, sec. 5, Vol. I, pp. 202, 203. 



