254 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
lost 2 men. The nets were not considered a success, only 337 seals 
being secured, while the average catch of the other vessels of the fleet 
was over 550 seals. The total catch in 1888 was 2,551 seals, valued at 
$15,158. 
Three vessels, with a total net tonnage of 80.56, made Neah Bay their 
home port while fur-sealing in 1888, and another vessel also engaged in 
the fishery the following year, but was seized for illegal sealing. The 
crews of the vessels from this place are almost entirely Indians, and 
the vessels are really owned by them, but a few white men are shipped 
to manage the craft and comply with the customs regulation requiring 
the master to be a citizen of the United States. There were 1,250 seals 
taken in 1888, yielding $5,925. 
THE SALMON FISHERY. 
Importance .— The salmon fishery is the most important one carried 
on in the waters of Puget Sound, and the catch amounts to more than 
a third of the entire yield of fish in this region. Salmon are taken in 
considerable quantities at Seattle, Port Townsend, and Tacoma ; small 
quantities are also secured by the Indians of Neah Bay. The salmon 
fishery at Seattle is more prominent than that for all other species com- 
bined, and owes its importance to the canneries at or near that place. 
ApparaUis and methods of capture, yield , etc . — The salmon fishery is 
prosecuted with purse seines, pound nets, or trap nets, and a few gill 
nets. The Indians employ trolling hooks and spears in the Sound and 
small streams tributary thereto, and parties fishing for pleasure also 
use spoon hooks and trolling lines. In autumn, when salmon are most 
numerous in the sound, Seattle Bay is literally covered with pleasure 
boats for days in succession. 
In the deep, swift waters of Puget and Washington Sounds the purse 
seine has been found the most effective form of apparatus yet used in 
the salmon fishery. It was first employed here in 1886, and its intro- 
duction is credited to the Chinese. * It closely resembles the purse 
seine employed in the Atlantic fisheries, except that it is fitted with an 
apron that can be hauled under the bunt in pursing, a device which 
was first invented for the mackerel seine, though it has not, to my 
knowledge, been successfully applied in the mackerel fishery. All of 
the salmon seines, however, do not have this apron. Captain Tanner 
describes this apparatus as follows : 
These seines are 200 fathoms long, 25 fathoms deep in the bunt, and 20 fathoms in 
the wings; they have a 3-inch mesh. The twine used iu their construction is of 
three sizes, Nos. 12, 15, and 18, No. 12 being used in the bunt, No. 15 at each side of 
the bunt, and No. 18 in the wings. The foot line is heavily leaded, and the bridles 
are about 10 feet long. One and one-half inch Russian hemp is used for the purse 
line. The rings through which the purse line is rove measure about 5 inches in 
diameter, and are made of small-sized galvanized iron. 
The Puget Sound fishermen claimed that this style of purse ring was superior to 
that used upon tfie mackerel seines of the eastern coast. They had given tfie mack- 
