FISHERIES OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 
149 
itself up in a net. There is no possible means of escape, and when thirty or forty stur- 
geons or other large fish are actively exerting themselves for liberty, and each struggle 
only tends to hold them more secure, the scene can better be imagined than described. 
The wire of which the hooks are made is square, of the finest steel, and capable 
of holding fish of great size. The trawls are always set off bottom and from three 
to five fathoms below the surface, according to the depth of water and the way in 
which the fish sought are thought or known to be moving. Often large numbers will 
be set in one string, they being bent together in the same manner as cod and had- 
dock trawls; they are also anchored and buoyed in the same way. Some sturgeon 
trawls have a small wooden float attached to each cluster of hooks; but I am in- 
formed that this is an Italian invention and is not used by the Chinese. The trawls 
used by the latter class of fishermen have the hooks fastened to short gangings 
which are attached to short bridles, these leading to the ground-line. The whole 
apparatus is indeed a complicaied one, and in order to give a correct and compre- 
hensive description in detail it should be seen set in the water, which, by the way, 
is something seldom witnessed. 
• Methods of fishing . — Generally speaking, the bag nets or traps are put 
into the water early in spring, and most of them are taken up in No- 
vember, when the fishery practically ends, though a few nets are fished 
all the year. Wilcox states that when he visited the Chinese camps, in 
the last week of December, 1888, he sailed through San Francisco Bay 
in the. steam-launch of the Albatross for a distance of fully 30 miles 
without seeing a single trap net in the water. The number used varies 
somewhat in different camps, but on the whole amounts to an average of 
five or six to a man. The nets are set in two ways. One method is to 
anchor them at the bottom, marking their positions by keg buoys float- 
ing at the surface. By the other method they are set in rows, the mouth 
of each fastened between poles driven into the bottom, with their upper 
ends projecting above the surface of the water. By this method the 
mouth of each net is fully distended, while the body oC it swings away 
with the tide. All kinds of swimming animals that come in or go out 
with the tide are caught, for in some localities the bag nets completely 
cover the bottom across a wide area. 
The nets are watched very carefully, and at each “ slack” or turn of 
the tide they are taken up, the contents removed, and their direction 
changed, so that they will head the next set of the current and thus 
be prepared to take into their capacious pockets all that comes to them. 
The catch is secured, according to Wilcox, by taking up the mouth and 
tying up such part of the bag as can be easily handled; the contents 
are then emptied into the boat. Then another part is tied up and emp- 
tied, and so on, until the bag is cleaned of its contents, when it is once 
more set facing the return tide. Everything that enters these bag 
nets, large or small, is taken. The best fish are sold for food ; the 
unsalable are fed to pigs or poultry. Shrimp are the most important 
part of the catch, both in quantity and value. 
The gill nets are usually anchored, and are termed “set nets” when 
used in this way. The Chiuese fishermeu are very painstaking and 
lose no opportunity to secure a good catch. Having set their gill nets, 
