40 HALIBUT FISHING GROUNDS OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 



Halibut are frequently caught around the islands near Sitka, yet 

 fishermen who have investigated outlying grounds in that locality 

 have always met with poor success. 



Prior to 1904 a considerable body of herring annually visited 

 Yakutat, their principal ground being in a lagoon just back of the 

 village. Since that time few herring have appeared, and the fishery 

 has become a total failure. The disappearance of the fish is at- 

 tributed to the pollution of the ground in the lagoon where most 

 of them were caught and dressed, no care being taken to keep the 

 water free from offal. 



Vessels fishing on grounds in this region would usually find it 

 necessary to take with them a large amount of bait. In the spring, 

 however, when herring strike along the coast from the Strait of 

 Juan cle Fuca to Yakutat, halibut fishermen could at times obtain 

 herring for bait purposes at other places adjacent to Yakutat. 



Ocean Cape and Icy Bay. — It is thought that the grounds within 

 the above-mentioned limits have a sufficient commercial value to 

 warrant one or two halibut steamers making extensive trials at a 

 time when halibut are scarce in the vicinity of Cape Spencer, the 

 most northern region in Pacific waters where the halibut fishery 

 has been conducted. It frequently happens during the summer 

 months that considerable cruising is done by the steamers in search 

 of fish, and should a small portion of the fleet repair to this ground 

 it is not unreasonable to suppose that fairly good results would 

 attend the trials made. This area seems as much worthy of con- 

 sideration as a number of small banks farther south, where extensive 

 fishing has been carried on during the last 10 or 12 years and 

 where, though at first few halibut were found, the grounds subse- 

 quently proved to be valuable. 



South of Yakutat Bay. — On the morning of August 10 we left 

 Yakutat and steamed down the coast from Ocean Cape 28 miles on 

 a SE. by S. ^ S. course and sounded, expecting to find rocky bottom, 

 as indicated on the chart. Finding muddy bottom, six soundings 

 were taken at intervals of 2 miles. At the last sounding, latitude 

 58° 53' 00" N., longitude 139° 47' 00" W., depth 85 fathoms, finding 

 bottom less muddy than at the previous soundings and mixed with 

 sand, a test of the ground was made. The trial lasted one hour, 

 resulting in a catch of one dogfish. This position was 39 miles from 

 Dry Bay. 



For a distance of 90 miles south of Ocean Cape the character of the 

 bottom, or at least that portion of it sounded over by the Albatross, 

 is such as to preclude the possibility of its being a halibut ground. 

 This is confirmed by the chart. There may be scattering patches of 

 bottom where halibut exist, but it is doubtful whether in large quan- 



