FORTY-FIRST BIENNIAL REPORT 4!) 



they would like to go salmon fishing' without cliarge, tlie reservation 

 being that they were to donate all fish for this tagging i)r()gi-aiu. Tlic 

 idea appealed to the sportsmen and the skippers had no tronhle obtaining 

 full crews. The Division of Fish and Game furnished a mininnnn of one 

 tagger to go with each boat. On a few boats, two taggers went along. 



On the twenty-sixth of ^larch. l!)4n, this armada ]Hit to sea, and 

 spent the morning and early afternoon fishing for salmon. Fishing was 

 only fair and 69 fish were landed by the 15 boats. This operation did 

 a great deal to promote bettei- understanding between the division and the 

 boat operators and the sportsmen, and it was decided to repeat in I!).")!). 

 The 1950 salmon season opened earlier, i.e., on March 1st; hence, it was 

 decided to hold "Tag Dav" on Februarv 26th, the last Sundav before 

 the opening of the season. Operations were much as in 1949, except tliat 

 the weather was a little better and the fishing was a great deal better. 

 Twent}' boats tagged a total of 865 salmon during the day's operations. 

 Twelve fish were killed during the course of the tagging operation. These 

 were all turned over to charity. 



The most important result of this ocean tagging has been to show 

 tliat the great bulk of California's king salmon originate in the Sacra- 

 mento-San Joaquin River systems. An earlier tagging experiment con- 

 ducted from 1939 to 1942 also demonstrated this fact. The present 

 experiment confirms the older fiiulings and conclusively demonsti-ates 

 that if we are going to have a salmon fishery either in the river or the 

 ocean, we are going to have to be very careful about what happens to 

 the spawning beds of the Sacramento-San Joa((iiin IJiver systems. 



Interesting but much less important than the mass movements of 

 salmon into the Sacramento-San Joatjuin Rivers are iho occasional long- 

 range and high speed movements shown l)y a few individual fish. One 

 king salmon went from San Francisco to southern Canada in ill days. 

 Another made the trip to the Columbia River in 22 days. One salmon 

 tagged oflp Oregon was recovered in the Tuolumne River. Another tagged 

 otf the Washington coast was recovered in tlie Saci-amenlo Kiver. ()ne 

 tagged off southern Canada was recovered oft' New Years Point, between 

 San Francisco and Santa Cruz. 



Silver salmon are much less impoi-tant in the California fishery 

 than the kings. The landings of silvers amount to only about 10 pei-cent 

 of the State's total catch. Tag returns show t hat the movements of sil\ eis 

 in no way resemble those of kings, .Most of the i-ecoveries frotii ('nliliu-- 

 nia-tagged silvers were made in the waters olT ()re<j-on oi- in ( )i-cgon 

 streams. This northward movement stiows in I'cturiis Troni both the 

 1939-42 tagging and from the present tagging experiment. 



Another experiment involving cooperation \>y the States of Cali- 

 fornia, OiV'gon, and AVashington was the marking of salmon in the 

 rivers of the three Pacific Coast states in oi'der to determine what streams 

 were providing what percentage of the marine catches of salmon in what 

 specific areas. This Avork was started in 1950. California's share w;is to 

 include the marking of 200,000 hatchery-reared fish from ('oleinan 

 Hatchery on Battle Creek, 200,0()(l wild fish fi-om the Sacramento Kivei- 

 and 200,000 fish from a coastal hatchery. As actually carried out. the 

 work included 234,000 wild fish from the Siicramento Piver (marked 

 by removing dorsal and left ventral fins;; 2.35.000 froni Coleman 



