TniRTY-SEVENTII BIENNIAL REPOKT 11 



the flood damage of that year. Since that time the increase has been con- 

 stant and this year the amount produced and planted will be nearly 

 twice as great as during any previous year. 



Tables I and II, in conjunction, show to what extent the planting of 

 trout has kept pace with the increase in the number of licenses sold each 

 year and at the same time with only a moderate increase in the total oper- 

 ating expenditures of the bureau. 



TABLE II 

 OPERATING EXPENDITURES, BUREAU OF FISH CONSERVATION, 



1937 TO 1942 



p. , Salaries Materials Service Property .\ngling 



Y a ""'' ''"'' ^""^ ^^^ Total licenses 



^ ^ wages supplies expense equipment sold 



1935-36 87th $172,645 $104,435 $29,518 $6,913 $313,512 223,908 



1936-37 88th 198,460 118,600 40,196 19,465 376,721 298,736 



1937-38 89th 222,085 117,000 40,350 21,325 400,760 312,969 



1938-39 90th 216,519 92,640 40,123 20,266 369,549 346,661 



1939-40 91st 225,409 75,280 35,522 13,273 349,484 366,452 



1940-41 92d 252,804 92,639 40,488 16,870 402,802 388,472 



1941-42 93d 252,944 . 85,682 48,912 8,123 395,722 458,177 



It will be noted that the principal budgetary increase has been in 

 salaries and wages. This resulted first from the raise to the minimum 

 authorized by the State Personnel Board in 1937 and secondly, in the 

 following years through annual salary increases provided for by action 

 of the Legislature. To a lesser but wholly justifiable extent there has 

 been an increase in the total number of employees of the bureau. The 

 increase in the salaries and wages item has been largely compensated for 

 by economies in other items such as fish food and equipment so that the 

 total operating budget has only been increased by about 4.6 per cent 

 during the last three years as compared with the first four years of the 

 period indicated in the table. In addition to operating expenditures 

 shown in the table there has been a considerable amount expended for 

 permanent improvements such as new hatcheries which will be described 

 in detail later in this report. 



The question might naturally be asked as to whether angling, par- 

 ticularly for trout and salmon, is holding up under the additional drain 

 put upon the resource through an increase of over 100 per cent in the 

 number of licensed anglers in California between 1935 and 1941. In 1935 

 the Bureau of Fish Conservation instituted a system whereby annual 

 records of the anglers' catch throughout the State could be obtained from 

 year to year in order to answer the question as to the condition of our 

 game fisheries and thus supply information that would be of great value 

 in their management. 



The first system of collecting the records was based on voluntary 

 reports made by the anglers on the license application form and was in 

 effect until 1939. There were several drawbacks to this system. The 

 fisherman's memory of his season's catch had become hazy by the time 

 he came to report it on his next year 's license application. The publicity 

 and haste attendant upon buying the new license also made for poor 

 individual reports. Further, the records for any year were not complete 

 until all applications for the succeeding year had reached the statistical 

 department, with a resulting lag of over a year in the compilation of the 

 final report. 



