'American Fisheries Society 127 



When the kings begin to school, preparatory to ascending 

 the rivers to spawn, they are taken ahnost wholly by means 

 of gill nets. They will rarely ever take a bait at this time. 



The most pecnliar characteristic of the Alaska king sal- 

 mon, and a most nnfortnnate one for the fishermen and 

 dealers, is that the flesh is not always of uniform color. In 

 Southeast Alaska the flesh of the majority of the fish taken 

 is red, but in about one-third it is white. Occasionally a 

 specimen is taken with the flesh on one side of the body white 

 and on the other red, the line of demarcation being very 

 distinct. A few also are found with the white and red inter- 

 mixed, giving a mottled appearance. In Cook Inlet, in Cen- 

 tral Alaska, the run is composed wholly of red-meated fish, 

 and in Bristol Bay, Bering Sea, the earliest runs are almost 

 wholly red-meated, Init white-meated fish appear in the later 

 runs. 



The fact that the majority of the fish are red-meated in 

 Alaska shows that this is the natural color of the flesh of the 

 king. Idiis is further attested by the fact that southward all 

 along the Pacific Coast the runs of this species are wholly, or 

 in majority, red-fleshed fish. The Sacramento and Colum- 

 bia river kings are virtually all red-meated, the white color 

 becoming prominent first in Puget Sound waters. 



As the commercial value of the king salmon is largeh^ 

 dependent upon the degree of redness in the color of its flesh, 

 it is easily to be seen that an excessi\'e proportion of white- 

 meated fish in the catch would seriousl}- affect the price. In 

 disposing of his catch in Alaska the fisherman insists that the 

 dealer shall take the white-meated kings along with the 

 others, which is done at a considerabl)- lower price — about 

 one-third that paid for red-meated fisli. Hie greater part 

 of these are shipped fresh and disposed of for what they will 

 bring in the Puget Sound markets. 



It has been noticed that the largest and fattest fish are usu- 

 ally white-meated. One taken in May of this vear, in the 

 neighborhood of Klawak, on the west coast of Prince of 

 Wales Island, weighed, without the head. 101 pijunds, which 



