191 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



down stream, a distance of some hundreds of yards, perhaps a 

 quarter or even half a mile, the fisherman accompanying it 

 in a boat. The net has lead sinkers at the bottom and cork 

 floats at the top, so as to keep it upright, and it is not so deep 

 as to catch on the bottom. The fish are swimming up the 

 river, so they of course run into the net. A large number of 

 salmon are taken in Eel River, Humboldt County, and great 

 quantities might be caught in the Klamath and other streams 

 along the northern coast. A few young salmon, varying from 

 three to six inches in length, are caught while on their way 

 out to sea, with fine nets, in the shallow waters of San Fran- 

 cisco Bay. The Quinnat salmon is fat when it enters the fresh 

 waters from the ocean, but gradually grows lean, and the 

 color, which is light yellowish red, changes to a deeper shade 

 as it ascends the rivers. The meat becomes leaner, poorer in 

 flavor, and redder in color, in proportion to the length of time 

 that it remains in fresh water ; but the little ones which have 

 never seen the salt water, have a more delicate meat than the 

 larger ones fresh from the ocean. No attempt has yet been 

 made to breed fish for our rivers, though it might evidently 

 be done to a profit in many of the streams ; but whether in 

 the Sierra Nevada, where the mud abounds, is doubtful. Yet 

 the probabilities of success are sufficient to justify the trial. 

 Fifteen years ago the salmon regularly ascended all, or nearly 

 all, the mountain streams, to points above any of the present 

 mining camps, where the waters are as clear now as they were 

 in 1847. The rule is known to be general, and supposed to be 

 universal, that the salmon leave the ocean in the stream from 

 which they entered it ; and it is supposed, further, that they 

 go to the very branch or brook in which they were born. It 

 is well known that there is a salmon in the Klamath River 

 never seen in Humboldt Bay, and various species in the Col- 

 umbia never found in the waters of California, and salmon in 

 the Quiniault River, Washington Territory, not found yet in 

 any other stream ; and the Indians of Oregon say that certain 



