bucket of bait used (table 3). We found that a 

 high-producing vessel does not necessarily 

 have the highest catch rate per bucket of bait 

 used. Vessel A, which ranked first in catch 

 per trip with 4.1 metric tons and third in catch 

 per school with 1.3 metric tons, ranked sixth 

 [ with a catch of 179.3 kg, per bucket of bait 

 used, whereas vessel F, which ranked lowest 

 in both catch per trip with 2.0 metric tons and 

 catch per school with 0.7 metric ton, ranked 

 fourth or better than average with a catch of 

 225.3 kg, per bucket of bait used. The averages 

 of the other vessels varied from 174.6 to 262.0 

 kg. 



I 



Number of men fishing . --In pole-and-line 

 fishing, each fisherman uses a stout bamboo 

 pole with a line and a lure consisting of a barb- 

 less hook to which feathers and a soft, plastic 

 skirt are attached. Simulating a live baitfish, 

 the lure is slapped on the water and moved 

 over the surface, which is rippled by water 

 sprays from the vessel to enhance the feeding 

 frenzy. When a fish strikes, the fisherman 

 quickly leans back on the pole, taking advantage 

 of the fish's initial thrust to lift it out of the 

 water and "flip" it onto the deck in one con- 

 tinuous motion. By relaxing the tension on the 

 pole, the fisherman allows the fish to become 

 unhooked then returns the freed hook to the 

 water. 



On Hawaiian vessels, the "good hookers" 

 fish at the stern where fishing is usually best 

 while others fish along the gunwales near the 

 stern. Every crewmember fishes except the 

 chummer. On some vessels, however, the 



captain, engineer, and perhaps one fisherman 

 fish only intermittently so they were counted as 

 fishing only if they fished more than half of the 

 fishing duration. 



Although the number of men fishing per 

 school ranged from 1 to 10, it was very unusual 

 to have fewer than 3 men fishing (table 9), All 

 the fishermen may not be in their positions at 

 the stern when the school starts biting; those 

 who are may catch a few fish before biting 

 stops. In counting the number of men fishing, 

 we included only those fishermen in position at 

 the time of fishing. Usually, between six and 

 eight men fished; most often, there were seven 

 men fishing (fig. 8). 



Catch increased as the number of menfishing 

 increased, but not proportionally. For example, 

 table 9 shows that four men caught an average 

 of 0.4 metric ton, whereas eight men averaged 

 1.3 metric tons or about three times as much. 

 Plots of the data in table 9 showed positive up- 

 ward trends of all the variables as the number 

 of men hooking increased; all except one of the 

 correlation coefficients differed significantly 

 when tested against the hypothesis p = (table 

 8). The exception was that for the correlation 

 between fish size and number of men fishing. 

 The test of the coefficient against the hypothe- 

 sis showed a probability very close to 0.05, the 

 level of rejection; however, we accepted the 

 hypothesis on the basis of the summary, by fish 

 size, to be presented in a later section. We 

 conclude from our tests that when the vessels 

 made large ca.tches, they usually had more men 

 fishing, used more bait, and fished the schools 

 longer. 



Table 9, — Number of schools and averages of catch per school, amount of bait used 

 per school, fishing duration, and fish size, tabulated by the number of men 

 fishing per school on seven Hawaiian skipjack tuna vessels, June-August 1967 



Men fishing 

 per school 



Schools 



Catch 



per school 



Bait used 

 per school 



Fishing 

 duration 



Fish 

 size 



Number 



Number 



Number 



Metric ton 



Bucket 



Minute 





1 

 2 



4 



1,0 



<0.1 



1.5 



5.0 



10.0 



3 



7 



8,1 



<0.1 



1.0 



3.3 



3.3 



4 



16 



76,3 



0.4 



2.1 



11.2 



5.7 



5 



64 



109.9 



1.0 



3.8 



22.3 



9.0 



6 



152 



140.0 



0.9 



3.8 



27.4 



6.3 



7 



188 



143.2 



1.1 



4.2 



27.8 



7.6 



8 



138 



180.2 



1.3 



5.0 



29.1 



7.0 



9 



41 



194.4 



1.6 



5.9 



32.2 



8.4 



10 



9 



306.7 



2.6 



7.3 



29.4 



8.5 



13 



