28 
BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
The principal results obtained in 1922 may be summarized as follows: 
1. An extensive migration of mature red salmon occurs past the shores of the 
Shumagin Islands and westward along the Pacific coast of the Alaska Peninsula 
as far as False or Isanotski Pass. This migration forms the subject of an im portant 
fishery centering at Unga Island, King Cove, Ikatan, and False Pass. In these 
districts in 1922 were captured 3,311,911 red salmon, which produced 225,888 
cases of the packed product, each case consisting of 48 one-pound cans. 
2. The enormous body of fish from which this highly important commercial 
supply was drawn consisted of individuals fresh from their feeding grounds and 
still feeding. This is an unusual condition in the red-salmon fisheries, which for 
the most part are prosecuted near river mouths, where the fish already have begun 
their fast — a fast that remains unbroken to the end, when they will have fulfilled 
their mission and have perished on the spawning grounds. The Alaska Peninsula 
fisheries, which formed the subject of our investigations, are peculiar in the respect 
that they deal largely with salmon in the midst of their migration in the sea, far 
from the spawning streams toward which they are directing their course. Shortly 
before their capture we may assume they were associated with the hosts of im- 
mature salmon, from which one, two, and three years later would be drawn the 
spawning runs of those seasons; but before they were taken they had separated 
themselves from their younger brethren and in dense formation had started along 
well-defined migration routes to their final destination. 
3. Of the Shumagin migrants a very limited number pursued an easterly 
rather than a westerly course, a few being recaptured as far to the eastward as 
Cook Inlet. The total number taking the eastward route was so inconsiderable, 
however, as to convince us that no appreciable draft would be made on the salmon 
supply of the Chignik, Karluk, and Cook Inlet fisheries, however intense might he 
the fishing in the Shumagin district. 
4. Of the remainder of the Shumagin fish comparatively few belonged to local 
races and entered one or the other of the small red-salmon streams of Unga and 
Popof Islands. The vast majority throughout the fishing season formed a definite 
westward migration. This imposing body of fish impinged on the mainland shore, 
notably in Morzhovoi and Ikatan Bays, and a large and important element, in 
common with other Morzhovoi and Ikatan fish, traversed Isanotski Strait (False 
Pass) and became distributed to all that unequaled group of red-salmon streams 
that empty along the Bering Sea shores of the Alaska Peninsula and in Bristol Bay. 
The fact that this wide distribution existed, constituted perhaps the most important 
discovery of the season of 1922. 
5. The salmon tagged in the neighboring bays of Ikatan and Morzhovoi in 
1922 gave no evidence of any movement to the eastward. They passed freely 
back and forth from one of these bays to the other, and often lingered for two or 
three weeks in the locality where marked. A limited number belonged to local 
streams, but many traversed False Pass and were reported from all the red-salmon 
streams in Bristol Bay and along the peninsula. 
Thus far we have the results of 1922. They were obtained during a year 
when the Bristol Bay red-salmon run was exceptionally heavy and might be con- 
sidered likely to invade territory that would be left unoccupied in years of less 
