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Those which go to the Okhotsh Sea, make but one trip annually, 

 leaving from the middle of March to the end of April, and returning 

 from the end of June to October. Those which fish at the Choumagin 

 Islands return earlier than those from the Okhotsh Sea, and 

 occasionally take more than one trip. Last year one schooner made 

 three trips, but her cargo each time was made up from the catch of 

 other vessels that did not return. The smaller vessels are better fitted 

 for the tortuous channels among the islands of Alaska than those of 

 larger size. 



On the coast of Alaska the fishery is usually carried on at depths 

 of from ten to fifteen fathoms, but in the Sea of Okhotsh lines are 

 used at forty to fifty fatlioms. Both trawl lines and angle lines are 

 used in the cod fishing of this coast. The latter are employed in 

 deep water, the former where the depth is not too great, and the bot- 

 tom is clear of rocks. Angle lines are exclusively used in the Sea of 

 Okhotsh, and frequently also in Alaskan waters. A trawl line con- 

 sists of a line to which a number of hooks are attached at regular 

 distances by means of shorter lines, while a weight is secured to each 

 end. Several trawl lines are paid out in succession, the position of 

 each being indicated by means of buoys, one of which is fastened to 

 each end of every trawl line. The trawls used in the Alaska cod 

 fishery are often six hundred fathoms long (3,000 feet), and bear on 

 each side a row of hooks at every half fathom, or thereabouts. After 

 they are paid out, they are examined at intervals, and are drawn once 

 or twice a day, according to the rate at which the fish take the bait. 



An angle line bears two hooks, kept apart by a piece of wire, and 

 has a heavy weight attached near the hooks. Each man manages 

 two lines, one on each side of him, drawing one as soon as he lets 

 down the other. 



The use of the angle line instead of the trawl line in the Sea of 

 Okhotsh is necessitated partly by the deep water, but partly by the 

 abundance on the sand banks of a small crustacean, called by the 

 fishermen a " sand flea," which attacks and devours the fish upon 

 the trawl line before it can be drawn. 



The fishermen are paid according to their catch, a fixed sum per 

 thousand fish. At Kadiak, where some fishing is done, natives are 

 employed to head, split, and salt the fish, and are paid from seventy- 

 five cents to one dollar per day. The fish are treated in a manner 

 similar to that employed in the Newfoundland fishery, the fish as 

 they are caught are passed to the header, who removes the head ; b}^ 

 him to the splitter, who cuts open the body and takes out the viscera. 

 The catch is then stored in pickle, as the salted condition is called, 

 until its arrival in the Bay of San Francisco, where it is dried in 

 establishments erected for the purpose. 



The quantity given above, as the total of the season's catch, does 

 not include that taken by local fishermen along the various parts of 

 the long line of coast between Behring's Strait and Puget Sound, at 

 which latter place it is found, but in small quantity compared with 

 its abundance in Alaskan waters. 



The three principal firms engaged in the cod fishery, are Lynch & 

 Hough, the Pacific Fish Company, and N. Bichardt & Co. The first 

 named, which does a somewhat larger business than the second, car- 

 ries on the fishery exclusively in the Sea of Okhotsh. It employs 

 about one hundred and twelve men afloat, and from ten to fifteen at 

 its drying establishment, which is situated, at California City, near 



