Mr. Livingston Stone, Deputy United States Fish Commissioner, 

 in charge of the government liatching establishment on the McCloud 

 River, reports officially that, in his opinion, all of the salmon of that 

 river die after depositing their spawn. This is possibly true, but it 

 does not account for the fact, that in the spawning season the 

 McCloud contains grilse and hsh evidently of three, four, and five 

 years old, unless we are to imagine that some salmon, after being 

 hatched and going to the ocean, remain there two, three, or more 

 years without returning to the parent stream for purposes of spawn- 

 ing. Beyond doubt the salmon that spawn in the coast streams go 

 back to the ocean, as they are frequently taken in the lagoons at the 

 mouths of these rivers on their return. Somewhere on the tributa- 

 ries of the Sacramento or San Joaquin, there are salmon that do not 

 die after the act of spawning, for they are frequently taken in the 

 nets of the fishermen in the brackish waters at Collinsville and liio 

 Vista, on their return from their spawning grounds. If it were the 

 fact that the Sacramento salmon so widely differed from other fish 

 that it spawned but once and then died, it would detract from its 

 value. This subject is one of importance, but at present the facts 

 are so obscure that we have made considerable effort to obtain the 

 opinions and the result of the observations of the men who are prac- 

 tically engaged in the taking of salmon in the Sacramento River. 



The following, from the letter of a fisherman who has pursued the 

 business of taking salmon for the San Francisco market during more 

 than fifteen years, gives some facts and his theory, based on his 

 observations. In reply to an inquiry on the subject, he says: "As to 

 the return of the seed salmon to the sea after depositing the spawn, I 

 am inclined to the opinion of Mr. Stone, so far as the greater part of 

 the female fish is concerned. I think very few of these, but many, 

 though not all, of the males return. I should judge that five per cent. 

 of females and twenty per cent, of males might be an approximation. 

 I express this opinion diffidentl3^ It is based on the style of fish caught 

 in the lower part of the river (from Sacramento to Collinsville). 

 After about the twentieth of September, of the fish then dropping 

 down the nets catch but few, for the reason that the net is drifting 

 with the current, and the fish are doing the same thing, and in con- 

 sequence, as a rule, the two do not come together, and the greater 

 part of the return fish escape. When the run is upward, the net 

 drifts with the current, and the fish swim against it, and the rule is 

 reversed. The percentage named above is not that of return fish 

 caught, but of fish that I estimate may have returned, judging by the 

 very few return fish that are caught. It is a very cloudy subject to all 

 fishermen. I have heard perhaps a thousand discussions on the river, 

 at all times of day and night, at the head of the ' drift,' among men of 

 the largest experience — men right in the teeth of the business — men 

 born to a boat and net, and grow^n gray and grizzled in their use — 

 upon the jjoint you raise, and the average conclusion always was that 

 nobody quite knew how it was. Of one thing I am convinced, to 

 wit, that return fish need no protection from the drifting gill net. 

 Not one fish in ten could be caught in that way. No such thing as a 

 run of salmon down the river ever occurs. The normal position of 

 salmon is head to the current. Though drifting with the current, 

 his head is toward it. In the light (or darkness) of these facts, you 

 see how difficult it is to say, positively, wdiat proportion of these fish 

 that have delivered seed, return to the ocean. No man can say posi- 



