TWENTY-NINTH BIENNIAL REPORT. 71 



To get at the abundance of any species of fish through the individual 

 opinion of anglers or commercial fishermen is to be very inaccurate, and 

 at best the result can be only a rough guess unless there is some system 

 for recording the many separate experiences of fishermen and analyz- 

 ing the data thus gathered. It so happens that we have a system of 

 recording the catches of commercial fishermen — the best that is in 

 existence in any state. This system was put in by state law some eight 

 years ago for the very purpose of determining the increase or decrease 

 in the abundance of any species of fish which is being utilized for com- 

 mercial purposes, and to do away with guesswork. This system, which 

 gets every commercial fisherman's daily catch together with the type of 

 fishing gear used, gives us the best measure which is known for deter- 

 mining the abundance of fish. The evidence from these records shows 

 that striped bass are not only holding their own but are actually increas- 

 ing in numbers. And we have not yet had time to experience the 

 benefit from the two weeks added closed season. 



PURSE SEINES. 



About ten years ago purse seines were introduced into southern Cali- 

 fornia, where they worked almost entirely out of San Pedro. Their 

 first success was in catching bluefin tuna, but they caught a number of 

 other kinds of fish, among them barracuda, of which they occasionally 

 made very large catches, and there were times when they killed more 

 fish than they could get aboard their boat. The catching of barracuda 

 by these purse seines was objected to very strenuously by the barracuda 

 gill net fishermen of San Diego. They took their fight to the legislature 

 in 1923 and got a bill through both houses which would have 

 prohibited the possession of a purse seine with less than four-inch 

 mesh. If the Governor had not vetoed this bill, the purse seines would 

 have been unable to catch small fish like the barracuda, mackerel or 

 sardine. Under those circumstances it would not have paid them to 

 operate, and they would have been eliminated entirely. 



At the 1925 session of the legislature the same bill was passed again, 

 this time without opposition, but was held up by the author and a com- 

 promise measure was put in another bill sponsored by the Fish and 

 Game Commission, which prohibited purse seines or round haul nets 

 from being used to catch barracuda. This became the law in July, 1925. 



It was claimed by the opposition to purse seines that they caused 

 great fluctuations in the price of barracuda and that if purse seines 

 were eliminated the gill net fishermen could supply the markets with 

 barracuda during the winter months as well as the purse seines were 

 doing it. It did not work as the gill net fishermen claimed. The 

 fluctuation in the price of barracuda has been much greater since purse 

 seines were barred from catching these fish, and the gill net fishermen 

 have not been able to supply the markets during the winter, as they 

 claimed they would. This is shown very clearly in a report by Joe 

 Craig, assistant in the State Fisheries Laboratory. As this purse seine 

 controversy is a very important one from a number of standpoints, we 

 are publishing the report of Mr. Craig. 



Purse seine boats are larger than the average sea fishing boat in 

 this state and for that reason are highly desirable for relieving the 



