PACIFIC SALMON FISHERIES. 79 
the bottom is rapidly closed up just as a handbag would be through 
the drawing together of the pursing string at the top. During this 
operation the nonpower purse seiners have a man standing alongside 
the rail who throws a pole into the center in order to drive the fish 
away from the open section. He is so skillful in this work that 
almost invariably the pole comes back to his hand as the pressure 
of the waters forces it up again. When the bottom has been pursed 
up the fishermen hauling by hand can move more leisurely, but with 
the power winches in use the hauling in of the net is a comparatively 
easy matter, and the pole thrower is dispensed with. 
When all the fish are in the bunt and the latter alongside, the fish 
are generally dipped out by means of a dip net balanced on the end 
of a tackle. A fisherman lowers it into the seine, scoops up a load 
of salmon, and as the net is hauled up guides it over the vessel, and 
then trips it and dumps the fish into the hold. 
The Puget Sound purse seiners meet the salmon off the entrance 
to the Strait of San Juan de Fuca and follow the sockeyes till they 
have passed out of American waters, what are known as the Salmon 
Banks, off the lower end of San Juan Island, being the principal 
rendezvous during the run of sockeyes. After this run is over they 
o up the Sound and fish for dogs and cohos, and later go to the 
Fad of the Sound and fish for dogs, cohos, chinooks, and steel- 
head trout. In southeast Alaska they follow the fish all over the 
bays, straits, and sounds of that section. Purse seines are used in 
a few other places, but the fishery is secondary to those with other 
forms of apparatus. 
This style of fishing is said to have been introduced on Puget 
Sound by the Chinese in 1886. 
TRAPS OR POUND NETS. 
A trap is stationary and consists of webbing, or part webbing and 
part wire netting, held in place and position by driven piles. This 
piling usually is held together above water by a continuous line 
of wood stringers, also used to fasten webbing to or to walk on if 
necessary. 
In building, the ‘‘lead”’ is first constructed. This runs at right 
angles, or very nearly so, to the shore, and consists of a straight 
line of stakes, to which wire or net webbing is hung from top of 
high water, or a little higher, to the bottom, making a straight, 
solid wall. 
At a little distance inshore of the outer end of the lead begin what 
are called the “‘hearts.’”” These are V-shaped and turned toward the 
lead, beginning at a distance of 30 to 40 feet on either side of same 
and running in the same general direction, the “big heart”’ or outer 
heart first, the mner heart, supplementing the first, being smaller, 
and the end of the outer heart leading into it. Some traps have 
only one heart. The narrow end of the inner heart leads into the 
“pot” and forms what is known as the “‘tunnel.”’? The tunnel ends 
in a long and narrow opening, running up and down the long way, 
and is held in position by ropes and rods. Below this is what is 
known as the “‘apron,’’ a sheet of web stretched from the bottom of 
the heart upward to the pot, in order to lead the fish into the tunnel 
when swimming low in the water, and to obviate the necessity of 
