ACCLIMATIZATION OF FISH IN THE PACIFIC STATES. 
451 
In Tomales Bay the fish occur sparingly. According to Mr. Babcock, of the 
California fish commission, they are quite numerous in Creamery Slough, a very small 
slough between Tomales Bay and Bussiau Biver. The water is made extremely salt 
by evaporation, and no other salt-water fish of commercial importance are found in it. 
In Bussian Biver the striped bass is now plentiful. It made its appearance there 
about 1890. In that year a 6-pound fish was taken on a hook baited with a minnow, 
and in 1891 the salmon gill-net fishermen began to catch the fish. One weighing 16 
pounds 1ms been taken by them within a few years. The species ascends the Bussiau 
Biver a distance of 20 miles, to Guerneville. 
The striped bass is found regularly but not abundantly in Monterey Bay. At 
Monterey a half-pound specimen was taken by the Albatross in 1890, which was 
supposed by Mr. Charles H. Townsend* to have been the first caught south of the 
Golden Gate. As early as 1880, however, they had been reported from that locality. 
In 1893 only one was taken at Santa Cruz, according to Mr. Alexander’s inquiries. 
In that year the first striped bass were taken by Capitola fishermen. 
Until 1894 the striped bass was not known to range south of Monterey Bay. In 
September of that year, however, two were taken in a seine at Bedondo Beach, Los 
Angeles County, thus extending their distribution about 360 miles, following the coast 
line. Each weighed about 6 pounds. 
Beports of a more extended coastwise range of the striped bass than that assigned 
have been made. In April, 1887, in a letter to Professor Baird, Mr. Horace D. Dunn, 
of San Francisco, stated that he was informed that these fish had been taken at 
places as widely separated as San Diego and the Oregon line, t In the report of the 
California fish commissioners for 1883-84 it is said “bass have been taken as far north 
as British Columbia.” While there is no reason why this fish should not be found as 
far north and south as the points given, no records of its capture, except as before 
stated, are available, and the inquiries of the agents of the United States Fish Com- 
mission, covering the years 1888 to 1894, inclusive, failed to disclose the occurrence 
of striped bass as far south as San Diego or north of California. 
MIGRATIONS, MOVEMENTS, SCHOOLING, ETC., OF THE STRIPED BASS. 
Although striped bass may be taken in the waters between San Francisco and 
tne Sacramento delta at any time during the year, they are more abundant in certain 
months than in others, and there is no doubt that the migratory habits which charac- 
terize the fish in its native waters have not been entirely lost on the Pacific Coast. 
They are sometimes observed schooling in and off the mouths of sloughs. A dozen 
or more may often be noticed playing and circling near an eddy. At times, Mr. Alex- 
ander says, they will hover persistently about places where two strong currents meet, 
to the discomfiture of the fishermen, whose nets are liable to injury if set in such places. 
They often go in large schools. In referring to their abundance, mention is made of 
the presence of a numerous body of fish on the Berkeley Flats, in San Francisco Bay, 
in June, 1894, and in the Sau Joaquin Biver in December, 1893. 
The bass seem to prefer the waters of the San Joaquin to those of the Sacramento, 
the former being warmer and clearer. The water in the sloughs that connect the two 
rivers all flows from the Sacramento into the San Joaquin. Striped bass are scarce 
in the Sacramento, and some of the salmon fishermen of that stream have never 
caught them. Salmon are much more plentiful in the Sacramento than in the San 
* Forest and Stream May 8, 1890. * t Ball. U. S. Fish Com. 1887, p. 50. 
