350 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



but in time much of these rejected parts will come to have a value. 

 The more serious waste, however, results from overfishing in years of 

 great plenty, as in the case of the sockeye on the Fraser River, where 

 in some years the catch is much larger than can be handled. Immense 

 quantities are thrown away, prices fall, and the independent fishermen 

 lose heavily, while the canners and dealers who control the market can 

 so regulate the catch by their own boats as to keep it within the proper 

 bounds. The impulse to increase the amount of fishing in the good 

 years is quite natural, but it would seem as though the number of nets 

 allowed might be adjusted to suit the conditions of each season, were 

 the requisite discretionary powers conferred upon some local authority. 

 The matter can not be remedied through the medium of an inflexible 

 law, and decisive action may need to be taken after the season has fairly 

 opened. 



As the sockeye catch has seldom, if ever, been equal to the demand 

 in the waters of Washington, it is improbable that there has ever been 

 a serious, if any, waste of this si)ecies south of the boundary. While 

 the traps may secure exceedingly large catches at times, the methods 

 of keeping the fish alive have prevented loss, except perhaps in some 

 cases where they have had to be transported a considerable distance 

 by scows. The discarding of the humpbacks taken in the traps with 

 the sockeye after removal from the water causes much destruction of 

 that form, which seems at present to be unavoidable. 



