404 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
For most of the fish the wholesale marketmen usually give 6 cents 
per pound in the winter, and during the summer months sometimes as 
low as 4 cents per pound, and even less. These prices are for round 
fish. When shipped inland they are packed in ice and sent by ex- 
press. The pompano, Spanish mackerel, flounder, robalo (Centropomus 
undecimalis), and a few other choice var iétios, are sold almost entirely 
for consumption in the city, and at fancy prices, often as much as 50 
cents per pound being obtained for some of them. The marketing 
_ houses also handle shrimp, turtle, terrapins, etc., as they may be taken 
by the fishermen, which is always in limited quantities. 
MATAGORDA BAY. 
Leaving Galveston Bay and going westward along the coast, at the 
mouths of most of the estuaries there are a few oyster reefs, from which 
at times the people living at the scattering hamlets and plantations 
obtain a “mess” of oysters. At Oyster Creek, Brazos River, San Ber- 
nard River, and Caney Bayou a few fish are taken by means of lines; 
but no established commercial fishery is met with until Matagorda Bay 
is reached, the entrance to which (Pass Cavallo) is about 125 miles from 
Galveston City. 
This bay is inclosed between Matagorda Peninsula and the ninth Se 
Its only channel to the Gulf of Mexico is through Pass Cavallo, which 
affords uncertain passage for vessels drawing 9 feet of water. Mata- 
gorda Peninsula, which separates Matagorda Bay from the Gulf, is 50 
miles long and varies in width from a few rods to 14 miles. It is quite 
low and sandy, and is in many places subject to an occasional overflow, 
permitting the waters of the bay to unite with those of the Gulf of 
Mexico. 
The Colorado, Navidad, Lavaca, and other rivers, all combined drain- 
ing an area of over 50,000 square miles, empty their waters into Mata- 
gorda Bay. This would render the water in the bay quite fresh, were 
it not for the large channel at Pass Cavallo. 
Matagorda Bay is about 53 miles long, and the width varies from 2 
to 14 miles. With its tributaries, Lavaca, Carankaway, Trespalacios, 
and smaller bays, it covers an area approximating 440 square miles. 
The depth of water in the bay varies from a few inches to 14 feet. It 
averages from 10 to 12 feet, except in the eastern end of the bay, where 
the ordinary depth is from 4 to8 feet. Under the influence of a strong 
southeast wind this bay becomes exceedingly rough, and during the 
last six years more fishing boats have been wrecked here than in all 
the remaining bays on the Texas coast. 
The fisheries prosecuted.—The extent of the fisheries of Matagorda 
Bay has varied with the prosperity of the towns along its shores, and 
at no time has it been so great as the bay is capable of sustaining. 
The fish and oyster trade in 1884 and 1885 reached considerable pro- 
portions, but owjng to the abandonment of the bay by the Morgan line 
