PACIFIC SALMON FISHERIES. 87 



chinook salmon in the Strait of Juan de Fiica. A large number of 

 white fishermen also engage in this fishery at the present time in the 

 same waters, while others troll for the same species, but more par- 

 ticularly silvers, in parts of Puget Sound proper. The ordinary 

 trolling line, with a spoon instead of bait, is used. 



Man}' of the trollers use power boats, and in this event four and 

 sometimes six lines are used. One and sometimes two short poles 

 are run out from each side of the boat (when two are used on a side, 

 one is shorter than the other), the butt being dropped into a chock. 

 Two lines are generally trailed from the stern. At the end of each 



Eole is a very short line with a small tin can attached. A few peb- 

 les are in the can, and as the launch moves slowly through the 

 water with all her lines set, the troller knows when he has a bite by 

 the rattling of the pebbles in the can. Each of the lines attached 

 to a pole is also connected with the boat by a short line from the 

 side to a point on the line about 20 feet from the tip of the latter. 

 When a fish is hooked, the fisherman merely pulls in the line by 

 means of the short piece and then can haul the hsh in hand over 

 hand. 



The most remarkable trolling region is in southeast Alaska. For 

 some years the Indians here liad been catching king salmon for 

 their own use during the spring months, and about tlie middle of 

 January, 1905, king salmon were noticed in large numbers in the 

 vicinity of Ketchikan. Observing the Indians catching these, sev- 

 eral white fishermen decided to engage in the pursuit, shipping 

 the product fresh to Puget Sound ports. They met with such 

 success that 271,644 pounds, valued at $15,600, were shipped. The 

 next year several of the mild-cure dealers established plants in 

 this region, thus furnishing a convenient and profital)le market for 

 the catch, and as a result the fishery has grown until in 1915 

 2,170,400 pounds of king salmon and 54,400 pounds of coho salmon 

 were caugiit and marketed. The length of the fishing season has 

 also lengthened until now the business is prosecuted vigorously 

 (luring about seven months in the year, and m a desultory manner 

 for two or three months more, only the severe winter weather pre- 

 venting operations the rest of the year. 



In southeast Alaska the fishermen generally use either the Hen- 

 dryic Seattle trout-bait spoon No. 5 or the Ilendryx Puget Sound 

 No. 8. The former comes in nickel or brass or nickel and brass, the 

 full nickel preferred. The Siwash hook No. 9/0, known as the Vic- 

 toria hook in British Columbia, is in quite general use. As a rule, 

 but one hook is used, and this hangs from a ring attached to a swivel 

 just above the spoon, while the point of the hook comes a little below 

 the bottom of the spoon. Occasionally double or treble hooks are 

 used. Some fishermen use bait, and when this is done the herring, 

 the bait almost universally employed, is so hooked through the body 

 as, when placed in the water, to stretch out almost straight and face 

 forward as in life. 



There are a large number of power-boat trollers in this region. 

 These trollers generally use one pole on a side and one at the stern. 

 The rowboat trollers use but one line, which is attached to a thwart 

 in the boat, handy to their reach when rowing, and trailing out from 

 the stern oif the boat. 



