886 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



there are salmon that do not die after the act of spawning, for they are 

 frequently taken in the nets of the fishermen in the brackish waters at 

 Collins^ille and Eio Vista on their return from their spawning grounds. 

 If it were a fact that the Sacramento salmon so widely differed from 

 other fish that it spawned but once and then died, it would detract from 

 its value. This subject is one of importance, but at present the facts 

 are so obscure that we have made considerable effort to obtain the 

 opinions and the result of the observations of the men who are practi- 

 cally engaged in the taking of salmon in the Sacramento Eiver. 



5. The following, from the letter of a fisherman who has pursued the 

 business of taking salmon for the San Francisco market during more 

 than fifteen years, gives some facts and his theory, based on his obser- 

 vations. In reply to an inquiry on the subject, he says: "As to the 

 return of the seed salmon to the sea after depositing the spawn, I am 

 inclined to the opinion of Mr. Stone, so far as the greater i)art of the 

 female fish is concerned. I think very few of these, but many, though 

 not all of the males, return. I should judge that 5 per cent, of females 

 and 20 per cent, of males might be an approximation. I express this 

 opinion diffidently. It is based on the style of fish caught in the lower 

 part of the river (from Sacramento to Collins ville). After about the 

 20th of September, of the fish then dropping down, the nets catch but 

 few, for the reason that the net is drifting with the current and the fish 

 are doing the same thing, and in consequence, as a rule, the two do not 

 come together, and the greater part of the return fish escape. When 

 the run is upward, the net drifts with the current, and the fish swim 

 against it, and the rule is reversed. The percentage named above is 

 not that of return fish caught, but of fish that I estimate may have re- 

 turned, judging by the very few return fish that are caught. It is 

 a very cloudy subject to all fishermen. I have heard, perhaps, a thou- 

 sand discussions on the river, at aU times of day and night, at the head 

 of the ' drift,' among men of the largest experience — men right in the 

 teeth of the business— men born to a boat and net, and grown gray and 

 grizzled in their use — upon the point you raise, and the average conclu- 

 sion always was that nobody quite knew how it was. Of one thing I 

 am convinced, to wit, that return fish need no protection from the drift- 

 ing gill net. Not one fish in ten could be caught in that way. No such 

 thing as a run of salmon down the riA^er ever occurs. The normal posi- 

 tion of salmon is head to the current. Though drifting with the current, 

 his head is toward it. In the light (or darkness) of these facts, you 

 see how difficult it is to say, positively, what proportion of these 

 fish that have dehvered seed retui^n to the ocean. No man can 

 say positively that the mass do not return. That some return is be- 

 yond doubt of a reasonable nature. K they all perish, it is certain 

 that many survive long enough to reach the fishing grounds lying 

 in the bays nearest the ocean. But I fail to see why the value of 

 the California salmon is affected by the fact (if it is a fact) that the 



