APPENDIX III APPENDIX III 
Hecate Strait because of the scarcity of local productive 
grounds. This can involve round trips of 500 to 600 miles. 
We were told by the manager of a Puget Sound marketing as- 
sociation that 83 percent of their groundfish are caught off 
the Canadian coast. On the other hand, groundfishermen from 
Oregon and California fish relatively close to their home 
ports. 
Although many trawl or drag vessels still fish only 
part of the time in the winter, there is an increasing 
number of year-round vessels at work. 
We contacted government officials in the four west coast 
States to determine the number of groundfish trawl vessels 
in the fishery (see table 7 below): 
Table 7 (note a) 
Groundfish Trawl Vessels 
Operating from the West Coast, 1976 
State Number of vessels 
Alaska (b) 
Washington ye 
Oregon S/412 
California ILLS! 
a/ oes not include vessels catching groundfish 
incidentally. 
Dy ast Gnd eieaniee 
&/ jlo7A) aaeae 
Groundfishing does not exist in Alaska. Federal and 
Alaska State fisheries officials told us that nearly all the 
trawlers registered in Alaska fish primarily for shrimp, 
with some groundfish taken incidentally. Only one trawler out 
of Alaska was reported to be operating in the groundfish 
fishery. This vessel was catching bait for other boats in the 
halibut longline fishery. 
Employment 
According to State and Federal sources, approximately 
280 vessels were engaged in the Pacific coast groundfish 
fishery in 1976. 
1) 
