FISHERIES OF WASHINGTON AND BRITISH COLUMBIA. 295 



J!^ets were employed up to 1893 only in the main Skagit River. They 

 were mostly gill nets of two kinds, one being set, the other drifting 

 when in use. The same year two seines, 100 fathoms long and 30 feet 

 deep, with a 3-inch mesh, were operated at La Conner at the mouth of 

 the river, and in the same neighborhood the Indians had four seines 

 of the same mesh, 30 fathoms long and 10 feet deep. A salmon wheel 

 was also built in that year a few miles below Sedro, but the results were 

 not satisfacto'ry. Nearly all of the salmon taken in its two branches, 

 the Baker and Cascade rivers, up to 1893 were obtained by means of 

 spears and gafts, both whites and Indians resorting to this method. 



The recent rapid development of the salmon market at Seattle, the 

 establishment ofcanneriesatAnacortes, and the demands from canneries 

 at more distant places have given a fresh impetus to the fishery in both 

 the Skagit River and the bay of the same name into which it empties. 

 In the latter especially has there been a marked increase in the amount of 

 apparatus employed, which consists of trap nets, gill nets, and seines. 



The Nooksack River is also, in proportion to its size, becoming of 

 considerable importance as a salmon stream. The sockeye have been 

 said to enter it, but the evidence to that effect is not conclusive. Fish- 

 ing is carried on directly off' the mouth of the river as well as at several 

 places along its course. Gill nets have been chiefly employed, and it 

 has been proposed to introduce trap nets near the mouth. 



The salmon fishermen on both sides of the line are of many nation- 

 alities, most maritime nations of Europe being represented and also the 

 Japanese. A large proportion consists of Indians and half breeds, and 

 some negroes are also employed. The Chinese, however, while they 

 compose the bulk of the help in the canneries, have participated only 

 to a very slight extent in the fishing and not at all in Canadian waters. 

 Nearly if not quite all of the trap-netters are whites. 



TRAP NETS. 



The use of trap nets in this region has been restricted almost exclu- 

 sively to the United States and mainly to the capture of the sockeye 

 salmon in the clear salt waters, where no other kind of apparatus seems 

 to be so well adapted for taking this species in the large quantities 

 required by the canneries. With the few exceptions elsewhere noted, 

 therefore, we find these nets distributed only along the course taken 

 by the sockeye on their i>assage from the sea to their spawning rivers. 

 They have not been tried in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, however, nor 

 does it seem probable that the sockeye schools skirt the shores of that 

 channel closely enough to give occasion for their employment at any 

 place unless it be in the vicinity of Becher Bay, on Vancouver Island. 



The first locality in the pathway of these fish where profitable trap- 

 net fishing has been found is at the southern end of San Juan Island. 

 Of the schools which turn southward after passing the San Juan group, 

 the only ones recognized commercially are those which enter through 

 Deception Pass into Skagit Bay and River. Trap nets have been used 



