SALMON AND SALMON FISHERIES OF SWIFTSURE BANK 
713 
areas south of Point Wilson, 78 from Seattle, 38 from Tacoma, 26 from Hood Canal, 
and 12 from scattered localities. More than one fourth, or 86, were from Skagit Bay 
and the Snohomish River. Of the remainder 1 was from Port Angeles, 5 from the 
San Juan Islands, and 76 from Bellingham and Boundary Bays. 
A second check was made, for the year 1901, of both drift and set gill nets, and 
it was found that out of 414 drift gill net licenses, only 63 were from Boundary Bay 
and the San Juan Islands. Out of 369 set net licenses 15 were from the San Juan 
Islands and none from Boundary Bay. It is evident that gill nets played a very minor 
role in the sockeye fishery in Puget Sound. 
The set nets were employed chiefly in river mouths, and especially in the Skagit, 
Snohomish, Duwamish, and Puyallup. A few were used away from the river mouths 
at such places as Open Bay on Henry Island, Andrews Bay on San Juan Island, and 
along the northwest shore of Orcas Island. 
There is some confusion as to the number of set nets operated, and as to their 
location during the earlier years. This is because a set net license was sometimes 
bought merely to hold a trap location during a year when it was not desired to drive 
the trap. The license fee for a trap was from 4 to 10 times as much as for a set net. 
No accurate estimate of the numbers of the different species taken by the gill-net 
fishery is available for early years, but the fishery was essentially the same then as 
today, except for the areas around Seattle and Tacoma, and the head of Puget Sound, 
where the salmon runs declined several years ago. 
RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF VARIOUS SPECIES 
The set nets, fishing chiefly in the river mouths, caught mostly cohos and kings. 
In the 4 years from 1917-20, inclusive, they caught, on the average, 5.8 percent of the 
cohos and 3 percent of the kings taken in Puget Sound. They took but 1.3 percent of 
the chums and negligible quantities of pinks and sockeyes. After the formation of 
the Washington State Fishery Board in 1921, set nets ceased to be a factor in the 
fishing because of their subsequent strict seasonal regulation and their removal, by 
law, from the rivers. 
The drift gill nets, fishing in the more open waters, caught a greater variety of 
salmon than the set nets. During the 18-year period 1917-34, inclusive, they took, 
on the average, 12.1 percent of the kings, 8.9 percent of the cohos, 4.9 percent of the 
chums, 1.1 percent of the sockeyes, and 1 percent of the pink salmon caught in Puget 
Sound. 
TRAP FISHERY 
By George A. Rounsefell 
REEF NETS 
Reef nets, being the forerunners of the traps, will be considered first. They were 
used almost exclusively by the Indians, deriving their name from the kelp-covered 
reefs on which they were fished. Originally made from the fiber of cedar bark or 
roots, they were changed to cotton twine when it became available. According to 
Rathbun (1899) a reef net consisted of a piece of webbing, varying more or less in 
size, but averaging perhaps 36-40 feet long by 25-30 feet across, the mesh being about 
3% inches. 
