REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 95 
Traps, or pound nets, are used sparingly in southeast Alaska, more 
numerously in the northern than in the southern portion, while in 
Chignik Bay and in Bristol Bay they are used almost exclusively. 
They are effective when the run is large. An objection to them is 
that they sometimes take more fish than the canneries can use; more- 
over, they fish without intermission and take large quantities of other 
fishes than salmon, such as flounders, pollack, cod, ‘‘Irish lords,” 
Dolly Varden trout, and other species, which are all wasted. This 
is a matter of slight economic importance at present, when there is 
little or no demand for these species in Alaska, but a trap may be very 
objectionable when placed in the mouth of a stream by continuously 
preventing the ascent of salmon to the spawning grounds. Various 
traps thus located, as in the lagoon of Chignik River, at the mouth of 
Yes Bay stream, and elsewhere, have been the subject of controversy 
between the salmon inspectors and the canners. The Yes Bay trap is 
plainly injurious. 
There were in operation in 1903 in Chignik Bay and lagoon 29 traps, 
so located as to practically close the channel, and the traps in Wood 
River are open to the same objection. This condition is manifestly 
not to the best interests of the salmon fisheries and should not be 
continued. It may be noted, also, that the traps, even in Puget Sound 
and the Columbia River, where they are most numerous and most 
extensive, constitute only a small part of the fishing equipment or the 
obstruction to the movement of the fish. In the Columbia River there 
were in operation in 1903 731 miles of webbing offering obstruction to 
the free movement of fish, of which 710 miles are chargeable to gill 
nets, 5 miles to seines, 1 mile to wheels, and 15 miles to traps. In 
the Puget Sound and Fraser River region there was a total of 410 
miles, of which 375 miles was chargeable to gill nets and only 35 miles 
to traps. There were 96 traps, all operated on the American side, 
and 3,000 gill-net boats, all operated in or off the mouth of Fraser 
River. 
It would doubtless be better if all traps, whether fixed or floating, 
were entirely excluded from salmon waters, but such exclusion 
would render fishing in some places almost impossible, or at least 
unprofitable. While the traps are large and numerous in the Colum- 
bia, and the gill nets many miles in extent, the supply of salmon in 
that river is kept up by artificial propagation. In the Fraser River 
region the traps in the sea take vast numbers of salmon, but in the 
river itself is a perfect thicket of gill nets, especially immediately fol- 
lowing the short weekly closed season. These conditions and the 
little attention given to artificial propagation in that region account 
in large measure for the apparent serious depletion of the Fraser 
River fisheries. Gill-net or trap fishing affects the supply of fish on 
the spawning grounds just in proportion to the number of fish taken. 
