PACIFIC COAST: CALIFOENIA. 609 



The others board at the "Fisherman's ITome," "Dalniazia Chop House," &c., paying 25 cents a 

 meal, or $3 a week. There are many who cannot pay at all, and owe already from $20 to $150 to 

 the coffee-house owners. The latter trust and charge accordingly. We are told that $3,000 is 

 already due to the proprietor of the "Fisherman's Home" from fishermen whose earnings are 

 insufficient to pay. Breakfast at the "Fisherman's Home" consists of an egg, biscuit, and wine or 

 coffee, and is served on a long pine table unpainted. 



BAY FISHING. The fish taken in the bay are chiefly herring, surf-fish, brown rockfish, sturgeon, 

 salmon, smelt, &c. For many years the bay has been systematically overfished with nets of such 

 small mesh that probably the bay does not contain one-twentieth the number of fish that it did 

 twenty years ago. One immediate result of this was that fish became scarcer in the markets of 

 San Francisco, and the price rose accordingly. This rise has been neutralized by the bringing of 

 fish in large quantities from Monterey and Tomales Bays, and by the inauguration of the trawl- 

 line and "paranzella" fishing outside. 



The wages now earned by the bay fishermen in San Francisco are pitifully small, very few of 

 them earning more than the $3 per week necessary to pay their board bill. Boats which cost $400 

 a few years ago can now be bought for $150. 



The fishermen lay most of the blame for the destruction of their business on the "paranzella" 

 fishermen who catch and throw away great numbers of small fish, besides enough large ones to 

 keep the markets well supplied. The small fish thrown away by these fishermen are, however, not 

 the young of fishes on their way to enter and stock the bay, as the fishermen usually claim, but, 

 for the most part, deep-water fishes of no economic value, which do not enter the bay. 



EOCK-COD FISHING. Six or eight lateen boats, of about 5 tons each, go out about the Faral- 

 lones, Point Eeyes, and elsewhere, fishing with trawl-lines for rockfish. Each boat has thirty to 

 thirty-five bunches of these lines, of which number froju five to thirty bunches are laid out at a 

 time, each hook being baited. These are anchored to buoys. 



The bait used is smelt or sardines. To prepare the smelt the head is cut off, the insides are 

 all removed, including the dark peritoneum, the scales are all rubbed off, and the vertebral column; 

 taken out. Only the two boneless slices are considered suitable for bait. From 500 to 1,000 

 pounds of this bait are taken on each trip. 



All the various red species are obtained in this way, rosaceus, pinniger, and ruler in the 

 largest numbers. Flounders of different species, cultus cod, and also halibut are sometimes taken. 



PAKANZELLA FISHING. Previous to 1876 fishermen working with seines for the San Francisco- 

 market made very good wages, occasionally running as high as $25 per night for each seine. In 

 1876 some of the fishermen secretly ordered a drag-net to be made, and took it out for trial without 

 the other fishermen knowing it. The experiment was entirely successful, and the drag-nets have 

 been used in San Francisco since. Their introduction naturally created quite a stir among the 

 other fishermen, especially among those who had previously supplied the market with torn-cod 

 and flounders. Threats were made to burn both drag-nets and the large boats which were used 

 to pull them, and for several months it was necessary to keep watch over the "paranzellas." There 

 is still a great deal of opposition to the use of these sets, fishermen complaining that by means of 

 them so many young fishes, especially flounders, are destroyed that the fishing around San Fran- 

 cisco is thereby greatly injured. Fishermen tell me that they are in very general use along the 

 shores of the Mediterranean. San Francisco is probably the only place where they have been 

 introduced into this country.* 



* "Paranzella diminutiva di Parauza. 1'uranza souo grosse barche, a vela latiua, che a due trascinano in mare, 

 assai lunge dalle coste, immense reti, per for grossa pesca." (Italian Dictionary.) The Spanish name for the same 

 is I'areya. but, although recognized, it is never used in San Francisco. 

 39 GRF 



