OTHER BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY. 313 
§ 229. Mishing.—The rivers of California and the waters of 
the ocean near its coast abound with fish. Trout are caught 
in the little streams, salmon in the Sacramento, and San Joa- 
quin, aud the rivers emptying into the ocean north of San Fran- 
cisco Bay, and a great variety of fish are caught in the ocean. 
Our fisheries are as yet so linited in extent that few fish 
are salted, nearly all going while fresh to supply the market 
of the towns on the coast. Salmon is the only fish salted 
for export. The species of salmon caught in our waters is 
called the Quinnat salmon. They are born in the rivers, go 
out to sea when three or four months old, stay out at sea 
some months, probably not less than fifteen months, and then 
return to the river in which they were born, there to spawn. 
The Quinnat salmon, as found in our waters, averages ten 
pounds in weight and sometimes grows to sixty pounds. It 
enters our rivers in November and remains about four months. 
Before our rivers were kept in a continual state of muddiness 
by the gold miners, the salmon ascended every brook in the 
Sierra Nevada, large enough for a fish to swim in, but now 
they do not leave the large rivers nor ascend them fur. The 
salmon in clear water offer fine sport to the fisherman with the 
fly, but in California they are caught only as a matter of busi- 
ness, and always in the gill-net, which has meshes just large 
enough to let the fish get his head in, and then the twine 
catches him behind the gills and holds him. The net is not 
dragged, but is stretched across or partly across the river and 
is allowed to drift with the current down stream, a distance 
of some hundreds of yards, perhaps a quarter or even half a 
mile, the fishermen accompanying it in a boat.’ The net has 
lead sinkers at the bottom and cork floats at the top, so as to 
keep it upright, and it is not so deep as to catch on the bottom. 
The fish are swimming up the river, so they of course run into 
the net. A large number of salmon are taken in Eel River, 
IIumboldt county, and great quantities might be caught in the 
Kamath and other streams along the northern coast. A few 
young salmon varying froin three to six inches in length, are 
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