THE COD FISHERY OF ALASKA. 207 
practices of the fishermen upon the abundance of fish, it will be well to review the actual numbers 
taken at different times and in various places. Captain Haley secured 10,000 fish in two weeks 
trom Indians on the Hoochenoe Bank, and could have got many more. The Indians caught these 
cod with bark lines on barbless, bent-iron hooks, two of them going off in a canoe and bringing in 
from 25 to 50 fish, which were quite enough to satisfy their laziness. They would not allow any 
one else to fish, but if they had the number would have been readily quadrupled. 
Mr. D. C. Bowen states that as many as 500 have been taken in a day by one hand-line fisher- 
man on Portlock Bank, and that the average catch of the whole season per man is 75 per day. 
Here may be repeated the statement of Captain White, of the United States Revenue Marine, 
who reported the capture, south of Kodiak, of 250 fish, weighing 30 to 40 pounds each, with 
twenty lines having four or five hooks each. This number was taken in two hours. 
From the New York Times of July 15, 1879, I extract a sentence by William S. Dodge, formerly 
mayor of Sitka, to the effect that “at Kodiak Henry Richard and Thomas Bache, fishermen, caught 
alone, with hook and line, within the last six months, 22,000 cod.” 
Capt. Andrew Anderson told me at Saint Paul that with a crew of ten men, on Seminoffsky 
Bank, he has caught as many as 4,000 cod in a day, and that his average catch there was from 
1,600 to 1,800 daily. 
Mr. D. C. Bowen stated that John McCathrine and a man named Smith caught 1,700 cod in a 
day on one trawl (a 12-line trawl of 600 or 700 hooks) in Unga Straits. Their average catch was 
1,200 fish. 
A correspondent of the San Francisco Post, writing of the season of 1876, says: “One man on 
board the schooner Selma, which arrived the other day, had 13,000 fish to his credit,”-&c. These 
were caught during a season of four months. 
Capt. J. C. Caton, who has been familiar with the Shumagin fishery ever since the second year 
of its existence, affirms that fish are plentiful enough to supply a large market when that is found. 
The evidence of all the fishermen goes to prove that the great want is not fish, but demand for fish. 
One such customer as Gloucester would whiten the Gulf of Alaska with hundreds of sails, where 
now there are less than a dozen, and there is every indication that full fares would repay the 
venture. 
As for the influence of fishing and its accompanying practices, we have information from only 
two points, Kodiak and Pirate Cove. Capt.-H. R. Bowen, of Saint Paul, Kodiak, says that cod 
are as abundant there now as they were when white men began fishing; that their haunts and 
habits have not been changed by the influence of man, and their numbers have not been diminished 
by over-fishing. Trawls have never been used in that vicinity. He regargs the practice of throw- 
ing gurry overboard as injurious to the fishery j the cod, he says, will leave and their place will be 
taken by sculpins. 
Mr. Thomas Devine, of Pirate Cove, said that cod are scarcer there now than they were five 
years ago. He accounts for their decrease by the increased fishing, especially with trawls, the 
injurious practice of throwing gurry overboard, and, to some extent, by the capture of the mother 
fish, which will sometimes take the hook freely. The loss of gear resulting from trawling has a 
bad effect upon the fishery. 
Foop.—The food of the cod in the Pacific is as plentiful and as varied as in the Atlantic. 
Most other fishes of suitable size are liable to suffer from its voracity, while certain species for 
which it has an especial liking are slaughtered in great numbers. There is a wonderful abundance 
of invertebrate animals, such as squid, shrimp, holothurians, crabs, marine worms, sea-fleas, and, 
in short, just such forms as are well known to every fisherman ou the eastern grounds. The waters 
