PUBLIC 

 LIB. 



CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME, 



197 



hibited and the fall season should close 

 earlier so as to give some measure of 

 protection to the larger and more im- 

 portant fall run. Trolling in the open 

 sea possibly should be restricted. In- 

 vestigations which were begun this year 

 by the Fish and Game Commission under 

 the direction of Dr. J. O. Snyder are 

 expected to throw light on this point. 



STRIPED BASS TAKEN IN MISSION 

 BAY, SAN DIEGO COUNTY, CALI- 

 FORNIA. 



Mr. A. G. Pearson of San Diego re- 

 ports that on or about June 20, 1919, he 

 took several small striped bass ranging 

 from five to eight inches in length, in 

 San Diego River near its outlet into 

 Mission Bay. 



On October 26, 1916, eighteen hundred 

 small striped bass were planted near the 

 mouth of San Diego River by the Fish 

 and Game Commission, and since that 

 time small striped bass have on several 

 occasions been observed near the place of 

 planting. As far as is known, only the 

 one plant has been made in southern Cali- 

 fornia and striped bass have never before 

 been reported south of Monterey Bay. 

 The fry at the time of planting were 

 between two and three inches long, being 

 fish of the year, spawned in April or May, 

 1916. If these fry had grown at the rate 

 they do in San Francisco Bay they would 

 have reached the size of five to eight 

 inches in 1917, during their second year. 

 If the fry reported by Mr. Pearson are 

 some of the fry liberated in 1916 the.v are 

 in their fourth year and their rate of 

 growth has been remarkably slow. It is 

 suggested that these five- to eight-inch fish 

 are the progeny of the fish planted in 

 1916, but that can hardly be as a suifi- 

 cient length of time has not elapsed, for 

 it is pretty certa'n that striped bass do 

 not spawn earlier thaa their fourth year 

 and the fish planted in 1916 would not 

 complete their fourth year until the 

 spring of 1920. It would seem more 

 probable that striped bass plants have 

 been made of which we have no record or 

 else striped bass which ra'e plentiful in 

 Monterey Bay have strayed to the south 

 and occasionally spawn as far south as 

 San Diego. 



The striped bass is not native to the 



Pacific coast, but was introduced from 

 the Atlantic coast in the early seventies 

 and since that time has become quite 

 plentiful. 



KELP HARVESTING MAY BE 

 RESUMED. 



During the period of the war nearly 

 four thousand tons of kelp were harvested 

 each year- in California waters. Upon the 

 signing of the armistice practically all 

 harvesting ceased as potash could not be 

 extracted from the kelp economically 

 enough to compete with the foreign potash 

 which it was expected would be imported 

 again in large quantities. In extracting 

 potash from kelp many by-products were 

 obtained which had never before been 

 obtained in commercial quantities. As 

 yet most of these by-products have not 

 found a market. Much progress was 

 made in developing more economical 

 methods of obtaining the potash from kelp 

 and it was hoped that if a market could 

 be found for the by-products the kelp 

 plants could continue to operate, but the 

 armistice came sooner than expected and 

 the plants closed down. Since then 

 efforts have been made to place a duty on 

 foreign potash, but as yet congress has 

 taken no definite action. Efforts have 

 also been made to find markets for the 

 by-products and now one or more new 

 companies which believe they have found 

 the solution expect to resume the harvest- 

 ing of kelp. The future of the industry 

 will depend less on the value of the potash 

 extracted than on the other chemicals 

 which should be valuable when com- 

 mercial uses for them can be found. 



SARDINE RUN AT MONTEREY. 



The sardine season at Monterey has 

 been earlier than that usually considered 

 normal. Canneries were running full 

 capacity during July and August. Dur- 

 ing August the nin was exceptionally 

 large and the fish unusually firm and of 

 good quality. This year there were more 

 crews fishing sardines than ever before, 

 forty-five crews operating, or an increase 

 of seven crews over last year. The short- 

 age of cans during the fruit season 

 greatly curtailed the size of the sardine 

 pack, which otherwise bid fa^'r to break 

 all records for this locality. 



