1P6 



CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME. 



COMMERCIAL FISHERY NOTES. 



N. B. ScOFiELD, Editor. 



THE SALMON OF THE SACRAMENTO 

 NEED MORE PROTECTION. 



It is believed tiiat the Sacramento 

 salmon are not being adequately pro- 

 tected and that serious depletion may now 

 be taking place. Within the last few 

 ■years the salmon fisheries at Monterey 

 and Point Reyes, which draw upon the 

 Sacramento supply, have grown enor- 

 mously, and as they have grown the catch 

 on the Sacramento has been correspond- 

 ingly less, in spite of the fact that thf^ 

 number of nets on the river has increased 

 and that on account of the higher price 

 the fishermen fish more persistently. 



The present fall season on the Sacra- 

 mento remains open at least two weeks 

 too long. Several years ago the season 

 closed on September 16. It was con- 

 tended by fishermen and dealers that the 

 salmon were running later each year and 

 they succeeded in obtaining an open sea- 

 son until September 20. Later the season 

 was continued until September 25. Thp 

 object of the closed seascn is to protect 

 at least one-third of the run in order 

 that they may pass up the river unhin- 

 dered by nets and cast their spawn iu the 

 headwaters and by so doing insure a con- 

 tinuous future suppb of salmon. With 

 the present season, one-third of the run 

 is not protected, for by the closing date. 

 September 2.5, the last of the run or so 

 much of it as is left has passed the nets 

 in San Francisco Bay, San Pablo Bay. 

 Carquinez Straits and Suisun Bay, a dis- 

 tance, favorable for the use of nets, of 

 nearly fifty miles. The salmon work up 

 the bays and river slowly and after the 

 run has passed the lower bays the fisher- 

 men move up and continue to catch them 

 in the lower river until the season finally 

 closes. The wonder is that any escape 

 The salmon which have escaped makf 

 their way to the spawning grounds which 

 are located mainly in the tributaries. Mil' 

 Creek, Battle Creek and McCloud River 

 In each of these tributaries a spawn- 

 taking station is operated to collect 

 salmon eggs for the hatcheries. The 

 number of salmon reaching these stations 

 is becoming less each year so that the 

 pumber of eggs that may be taken is now 



only about one-fifth what it was only a 

 few years ago. This decrease in the num- 

 ber of fish reaching the spawning grounds 

 is a sure sign of overfishing and it is self 

 evident the salmon should be protected 

 from this overfishing. 



The Sacramento also has a spring run 

 of salmon or rather what is left of a 

 once large spring run. The salmon of 

 this run enter San Francisco Bay during 

 the winter and early spring and after 

 (^soaping the trollers outside they have to 

 run the gauntlet of gill nets through the 

 bays and the river as far up as Colusa. 

 Above Colusa, as far as Vina, every place 

 the river sweeps round a bend with a 

 sandbar on the inside of the turn there is 

 a seining outfit which periodically SAveeps 

 the deep hole where the salmon congre- 

 gate preparatory to ascending the next 

 shallovp stretch of the river. There are 

 some fifteen of these outfits operating on 

 the "seining bars" on the upper river. 

 And the salmon can not escape these 

 seines which sweep the holes where they 

 collect except during periods of very high 

 water. On the river below Colusa and in 

 the bays, there is no closed season to pro- 

 tect this spring run. On the river above 

 Colusa the season closes May 15, but this 

 date is so late the run is all but over. 



There is no salmon stream in North 

 America where nets are allowed for so 

 great a distance up the stream as on the 

 Sacramento. The number of salmon 

 taken in these seines is not great, but 

 they are the remnant of the spring run 

 and they are a thousand times more 

 valuable for propagating the species than 

 ■'or food. The hatchery of the United 

 States Bureau of Fisheries at Baird on 

 rhe McCloud River is the only hatchery 

 which has collected spawn from the spring 

 salmon run, but at this hatchery they 

 have not attempted to take eggs from this 

 run for the past six years for the reason 

 the ntimber of salmon reaching that point 

 had become so small it was deemed in- 

 suSicient to warrant the expense of 

 operating. 



Two things are quite obvious to anyone 

 who knows the facts. Seining and gill 

 netting in the upper river should be pro- 



