SOUTHEASTERN ALASKA SALMON STATISTICS 
469 
The north shore of Chichagof Island from Point Adolphus to Point Augusta con- 
stitutes one of the more important fishing grounds of the Icy Strait section and one 
in which the operations are confined chiefly to traps. Large catches were also made 
by traps located along the southern shore of Pleasant Island and on Porpoise Island. 
Traps were also located along the north, or mainland, shore between Point Gustavus 
and Excursion Inlet and produced thousands of salmon ; but the most fruitful section 
in the entire Icy Strait district was the mainland shore from Excursion Inlet to Point 
Couverden, a distance of approximately 20 miles, along which nearly 50 traps were 
driven in a single season. The catch along that shore has been consistently high, 
running into the hundreds of thousands and millions of salmon, and easily accounting 
for 50 percent of the entire catch in the Icy Strait district. At no other section of 
the coast between Cape Spencer and Point Couverden do salmon strike in such 
volume as on the Excursion Inlet shore. Several small streams enter the strait 
along that coast, each of which has its run of salmon, but it is certain that they do 
not produce the large runs which invariably follow that shore. If the runs were 
local, the traps nearest to Point Couverden would presumably catch fewer fish than 
those nearer Excursion Inlet, but that is not the case, as the traps near the end of 
the peninsula make large catches, although the streams are small and unimportant 
in that section. The greater part of the runs which are intercepted here is obviously 
moving on to still more distant streams. 
Groundhog Bay is a shallow indentation on the Excursion Inlet shore without 
significance as a separate locality. It is a name given to a trap location by one com- 
pany and is not an accepted geographic name, but is used in this review because it 
serves to identify the place at which certain catches of salmon were made. The more 
exact the information is in respect to localities the more useful and important it 
becomes in the consideration of subsequent data covering the same locality. 
Division Point is also the name of a trap location between Excursion Inlet and 
Point Gustavus. Catches were recorded there in 1926 and 1927, and it is probable 
that catches were made in earlier years but were reported under some more general 
locality name, probably Icy Strait. 
On the south side of Icy Strait, or the north shore of Chichagof Island, are several 
localities — Point Adolphus, Eagle Point, Point Sophia, Pinta Cove, Spasskaia Harbor, 
and Whitestone Harbor — at each of which large catches of salmon have been made 
in some years, showing that a rather heavy migration of salmon follows this shore, 
not all of which is destined to enter local streams. The fairly high average returns 
at the several places indicates that a considerable body of salmon reaches the eastern 
end of Icy Strait, notwithstanding the many traps and nets which obstructed the 
way and the fact that many salmon traversing Icy Strait enter local spawning streams. 
In addition to the fish leaving this migration route to enter the streams debouching 
directly into the strait, Port Frederick on the south and Excursion Inlet on the north 
draw their respective runs from the main body of eastward-bound salmon. 
Port Frederick is the largest bay which indents the north shore of Chichagof 
Island; its tributary streams provide spawning grounds for pink and chum salmon 
chiefly, although small catches of other species have been recorded in nearly every 
year since 1911. The data for this bay include catches made at Humpey Creek 
in 1917, 1919, and 1920 and from Game Creek, Howard Creek, and Neka Bay in 
1918. Salmon catches were first reported from Port Frederick in 1905, but no con- 
centrated fishing effort was made there until 1911, when a catch of 205,801 pinks 
