746 



HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



The average running outfit of each cannery is rather more than $30,000. The total amount 

 of capital invested in the canneries is therefore from $900,000 to $1.000,000. 



APPARATUS AND METHODS OF CAPTURE. Each cannery is provided with some forty to fifty 

 boats, which they rent to the fishermen. Very few fishermen not fifty in all have their own 

 boats. 



These boats are mostly made in San Francisco, but as they can be made in Astoria somewhat 

 more cheaply than they can be bought in San Francisco, some of the canneries are having them 

 made in their own establishments. They can be built in Astoria for $175, without paint or rigging ; 

 painted and rigged they are worth about $225. The boats are sloop-rigged, with flat bottom and 

 center-board, and usually without deck. The chief danger which the Columbia Eiver fishermen 

 run is getting into the rough water on the bar. The breakers then turn the boats end over end 

 and a deck would not prevent it. 



The salmon are caught chiefly by means of gill-nets, although seines are used by some fish- 

 ermen in the latter part of the season, when young fish of from 8 to 10 pounds are in the river. 

 The young salmon count the same as the blue-back at the canneries, i. e., four and a half count as 

 one quinnat. 



The gill-nets used are mostly made for the canneries by the fishermen. Some of the canneries 

 employ a few fishermen to work for them during the winter, and repair their old nets and knit new 

 ones. The nets average from 200 to 300 fathoms long and from 40 to 45 feet deep ; mesh, 8J inches. 

 It takes about 170 pounds of twine to make a net, the twine worth about $1.10 per pound. Fish- 

 ermen are paid 20 cents a fathom for knitting nets. The nets are worth about $300 to $400. There 

 are two men and one net to each boat. 



As competition between the canneries becomes more close the nets are being yearly increased 

 in length. Formerly the nets were furnished by the fishermen, but now very rarely. The chief 

 reason for this is that the custom of home canneries of taking fish and asking no questions as to 

 how they were obtained led to the stealing of nets, and no fisherman could afford to run the risk 

 of having his net stolen. When a net is cut loose from the buoys and ropes it cannot be identified. 



When a fisherman has his own net he seldom "catches a steamboat in it." Fishermen working 

 cannery nets often have them run into by steamers. 



Most of the cauueries keep an extra supply of nets constantly on hand, so that in the height 

 of the season no boat need lie idle when a net is lost. 



The number of boats on the river has been much increased in the last three years. Some firms 

 thought that by doubling the number of boats the profits would be correspondingly doubled. 

 Other firms had to increase their number similarly, and the result is that the average of fish per 

 boat is greatly decreased. There is hardly room on the river for so many to fish at once. A hun- 

 dred salmon boats may be counted at almost any time in sight at Astoria. No one cannery can, 

 however, afford to reduce unless all the others should do so. The following record of the catch of 

 Badollet & Co. will show the decrease in the average per boat with the increase of boats : 



