SECOND EXPERIMENT IN TAGGING SALMON IN THE ALASKA 
PENINSULA FISHERIES RESERVATION, SUMMER OF 1923 
By 
CHARLES H. GILBERT, Ph. D. 
Special Assistant, U. S. Bureau of Fisheries 
and 
WILLIS H. RICH, Ph. D. 
Assistant in charge of Scientific Inquiry, U. S. Bureau of Fisheries 
CONTENTS 
Page 
Introduction ^ 27 
Method of tagging 31 
Returns - 33 
Red salmon 49 
Routes traveled 49 
Kelly Rock and Big Valley traps, Unga Island 50 
Coal Harbor trap, Unga Island 52 
Ikatan Bay 53 
Morzhovoi Bay, Pacific American Fisheries traps Nos. 8, 3, and 2 55 
Morzhovoi Bay, Pacific American Fisheries trap No. 5 56 
Rate of travel 58 
Shumagin Islands 58 
Ikatan Bay 59 
Morzhovoi Bay 60 
To Bristol Bay 61 
Percentage of returns-^ 68 
Other species 71 
Homing instinct in tagged red salmon 73 
INTRODUCTION 
During the summer of 1923 the writers, assisted by W. P. Studdert, carried 
out an extensive program of salmon tagging in the district south of the western- 
most portion of the Alaska Peninsula, between the Shumagin Islands and Isanotski 
Strait (commonly known as False Pass). Approximately 10,000 numbered alumi- 
num tags were attached to adult red salmon within this district, and the recaptures 
of such as were again taken in the ordinary prosecution of the commercial fisheries 
were reliably reported, as to both place and time, through the cordial cooperation 
of all the salmon-packing concerns in western Alaska. The program of 1923 was 
planned as a continuation of a similar experiment on a smaller scale which had been 
undertaken the previous year and has been reported on by the senior author. 1 
■Gilbert, Charles H.: Experiment in tagging adult red salmon, Alaska Peninsula Fisheries Reservation, summer of 1922, 
Bulletin, U. S. Bureau of Fisheries, Vol. XXXIX, 1923-1924 (1924), pp. 39-50. 
27 
