344 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Ouly the quiimat and silver salmon take the bait in salt water and 

 are fished for by hook and line, and this occurs on altogether too small 

 a scale to merit attention from the standpoint of legislation. In fresh 

 water the steelhead is the only species which might be caught in the 

 same manner, but we are not informed to what extent it is so obtained, 

 if at all. 



The well-known practice of spearing salmon in the upper, shallow 

 waters of a river, long followed by the Indians, has also been taken up 

 by the whites, and in some sections is extensively resorted to by both 

 for domestic purposes, as well as for making local sales among the 

 settlers. With salmon as abundant as they are at present, the danger 

 from this source is much less than on the salmon rivers in the east, 

 where this method is enjoined. In at least some localities, however, 

 the practice should be limited and possibly forbidden, this being espe- 

 cially the case witli reference to those streams in which the sockeye 

 and quinnat spawn. It is also generally so near the spawning time 

 before this method becomes effective that the fish so taken are not in 

 the best condition for food, being unsuited for canning or the market 

 trade.* 



Fishing has always been one of the chief occupations of the Indians, 

 one of their principal means of securing food. Though of the wilder- 

 ness, as the salmon themselves, and making use of crude appliances, 

 their catches have nevertheless been large, and yet have seemed to 

 produce no appreciable effect upon the abundance of the supply. Thus 

 the advent of the whites found the fishery stock intact, so far as can 

 be told. The Indians have greatly diminished; of the remnants many 

 have been changed by civilization into commercial fishermen, employ- 

 ing for that purpose the old-time reef nets, gill nets, seines, and hooks 

 and lines, to all of which reference has just been made. Those which 

 still hold to the primitive methods of fishing for their own needs, chiefly 

 in the upper parts of rivers, are comparatively few. Their apparatus 

 consists of spears, dip nets, and weirs, the last being a crude form of 

 trap, which, though not extensively employed, can be so placed as 

 practically to bar the entrance to important spawning grounds. The 

 spear has already been discussed; the dip net occupies a relatively 

 inconspicuous position from the standpoint of its catch. 



While under the original conditions the use of these several methods 

 to the fullest extent required by the Indians may have caused no harm, 

 with the heavy market fishery now in progress it may be necessary to 

 impose some limitations. The steady drain near the mouths of the 

 principal rivers makes it important that those salmon which reach the 

 upper waters should be interfered with as little as possible. The use 



* By the act of March 13, 1899, it is made unlawful to fish for salniou by any means 

 except angling above tide water in the Nooksack, Skagit (up to the town of Hamil- 

 ton), Stillaguamish, Snohomish, White, Nes(inally, and Skokomish rivers. The 

 State fish commissioner may also close to fishing any stream or river of Wa,shington 

 emptying into Puget Sound whenever he shall consider that the protection of its 

 food-fishes require it. 



