366 
BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
the reproductive period from March 1 to May 31, and that regulated dipping be 
permitted in tidal portions of those streams 300 feet below mean high-tide mark 
three hours after high tide. The size of the dip nets should be regulated and the 
quantity of smelts that may be taken in any one night by each person should be 
prescribed. Furthermore, the season of such fishing should be limited according to 
conditions existing in any locality, and the closed season against all other methods 
of fishing should begin as early as March 1. 
The writer is inclined to believe that some such law would afford ample pro- 
tection to breeding fish, providing always it is properly observed or enforced. It 
would be more likely to be observed than would a law aiming to prohibit all “dipping” 
in the spawning season, for there are local residents near such streams or creeks 
who, as Counce said, are unable to get a mess of smelts at any other time, and who 
would be able to secure the fish legitimately under such a regulation, some of whom 
however, might be tempted to get their smelts anyway, if the law forbade all 
fishing. 
This is not recommended on the ground that because some individuals will 
steal they be allowed a certain privilege so that it won’t be necessary for them to 
steal, but because of the fact that it does not appear necessary wholly to withhold 
the dipping privilege from such persons as have regarded the spawning runs of 
smelts as their opportunity, and who in the nature of the case have nothing in com- 
mon with the professional smelt fishermen or the smelt industry. 
While such fishing should be properly and adequately regulated, there are other 
factors to be considered in a decline in the number of smelts, and doubtless some of 
them may be laid at the door of other methods and times of fishing. Sometimes it 
appears that the professional fisherman is as heedless regarding the perpetuation of 
the fish supply as is the most wanton youth on a smelt brook. Such being the case, 
his methods also call for regulation. 
Commissioner Donahue referred to the employment of certain devices in rivers so 
narrow that the gear caught virtually all of the fish that entered them. Reference 
might have been made to the use of the drag seine in similar places elsewhere, and 
to the capture of smelts in places where they congregate just prior to ascending the 
streams in spring, as well as to the great quantities of young smelts caught by seines 
along with adult fish in the fall. How properly to regulate this factor in the deple- 
tion of the smelt supply certainly is a problem unless seining is prohibited. As in 
the case of dipping it does not seem necessary to abolish seining, but it should be 
regulated. In fact, all methods of fishing should be regulated. There is a prescribed 
open season for all methods, but for reasons previously given it should be shortened 
so as to terminate March 1. 
Conservation does not necessarily signify suppression of fishing or prohibition of 
any particular method of fishing. It does, however, demand proper regulation of 
time or methods, as well as protection of the fish at critical periods in their fife his- 
tory, in order that the yield of the fishery may be maintained commensurate with 
the market demand and consistent with the economic preservation of the species. 
Obstruction and pollution of many otherwise accessible breeding places may be 
corrected. The capture of smelts as they ascend the streams at spawning time, as 
already pointed out, is preventable to a considerable extent. Although the duration 
