SALMON AND TKOUT IN ALASKA. 93 



Canal at the same time temperatures rose from 55° at the head of 

 Tongass Narrows to 58° off Spacious Bay, densities falling from 1.0188 

 to 1.0124 at the same time. Subsurface tows demonstrated an 

 abundance of plankton food throughout all the channels. 



Ketchikan Creek is a larger stream than Helm Bay Creek, which 

 carries a few thousand sockeyes. It drains a lake and is frequented 

 by humpbacks and cohos. No sockeyes are known to enter it. They 

 could not reach the lake owing to falls about a mile from the mouth, 

 but a school of fish looking for a suitable stream would learn this fact 

 only after ascending the river. 



A few hundred yards below its head Naha Bay receives a small creek 

 known as Steelhead Creek. This creek drains lakes of considerable 

 size, and should carry water suitable for sockeyes, though they could 

 not enter the lakes on account of an intercepting fall. The volume 

 is small, but during the rainy season is ample for the ascent of fish, 

 and many coho, dog, and humpback salmon, as well as steelheads, 

 spawn there. No sockeyes are known to enter it, nor were any 

 sockeye fry seen among the thousands of salmon fry taken there. 



It is probable that examination of the imstocked streams of Alaska 

 would disclose others of interest in the question of stream selection. 



RELATION OF SIZE OF RUN TO SPAWNING AREA. 



There seems to be no relation between the size of the run at any 

 given stream and the extent of spawning ground. Hetta, consid- 

 ered good for from 50,000 to 150,000 fish, has comparatively little area 

 of beds. The fish spawn mainly in one small creek about a mile in 

 length, and along the lake shores. The Naha, as noted above, has 

 a small area compared to its natural productiveness. Kegan has 

 almost no spawning bed — only about a hundred yards of the main 

 stream. At Nowiskay the borders of the lake are used almost entirely, 

 none of the entering streams being suitable. Yes Bay and Karta 

 streams both have excellent and extensive beds. On the other hand, 

 the stream at Ward Cove has a greater area of good spawning ground 

 than any of these streams except Karta and Yes bays, yet it ^^elds 

 too few sockeyes to pay for fishing. Karluk Lake has many tributary 

 creeks that are used by spawning fish, but the total area seems scarcely 

 commensurate with the enormous productiveness. 



With the exception of the few streams just mentioned, little is 

 known of the spawning grounds of the Alaskan sockeye. Up to 1903 

 no attempt was made to arrive at the natural fecundity of the spawn- 

 ing beds; hence the investigator is absolutely without standard or 

 means of accurate comparison. 



