278 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
The sturgeon meat is practically all shipped east, the bulk of it going to Sandusky, 
Ohio. The carcasses are cut iuto pieces of convenient size, which are frozen solid and 
then loaded into refrigerator cars for transportation. Up to the time of Mr. Wilcox’s 
visit ill 1892 the sturgeoji had been found in ample abundauce-for the purposes of the 
lirms engaged, but at that time the .fishermen were beginning to experience some diffi- 
culty in taking as many fish as formerly. They were obliged to. move from one fishing- 
ground to another more frequently than had previously been necessary and they were 
compelled to use larger quantities of apparatus in order to keep up the catch. In the 
season of 1893-91 there was a very iierceptible decrease in the supply and the fishery 
was generally regarded as being on the decline. Uudei-date of February 1.5, 1891, Mr. 
C. B. Trescott, who is extensively engaged in sturgeon fishing and shipping, wrote 
to the Fish.Oommission as follows, regarding the condition of this industry on the 
Columbia Eiver: 
Sturgeon lishiug has comiiletely failed on the Coluinhia. There has been no fish caught since last 
November to amount to anjThing. At iiresent the entire catch on the* river does not amount to over 
1 ton of dressed fish a day, and is growing' less. IVe do not expect to he able to lish. longer than the 
15th of March, and what few we get now do not pay for handling. At iiresent we do not have much 
faith in the sturgeon business on the Columbia. Usually we have a good run of fish in January or 
February, but there, are no fish this year and there is every indication of the fish being caught out. 
IVe have thought that we would.have our usual run of sturgeon on the Columbia in January and Feb- 
ruaiw. The sturgeon season will begin again on the 15th of August, and if we do not have our usual 
run offish then it will prove that the sturgeon fishing is done for here. There is every indication of 
the sturgeon business having seen its best days on this coast. The total catch for thistseason has not 
been 25 per cent of the catch last season, and what fish were caught were caught in August, Septem- 
ber, and October. 
Tlie suggestive remarks of Mr. Trescott are iu accord with what might have been 
expected as a result of the useless waste of enormous numbers of small fish taken in 
wheels, pound nets, and other nets, supplemented in the past five years by the very 
active use of set lines, by which verj^ large quantities of spawning fish have been sacri- 
ficed. Eegarding the destruction of sturgeon in tvheels in 1888 it was said: 
The wheels often take in a day mauj" tons of sturgeon Jess than 50 pounds in weight. Such are 
not marketable and are now thrown iuto the river. Their utilization would be a blessing to the 
fisherman, for they now help to contaminate the water.— (Eeport on the Fisheries of’the Pacific Coast. 
U. S. Fish Commission Eejiort, 1888.) 
In an interview with Mr. M. J. Kinney, of Astoria, he made the following remarks 
conceruiug sturgeon in the lower river: 
In 1893 there was a good supply of sturgeon. The fish sold for. 2 cents a pound. The fishermen 
as a whole did not do well, however, although the price received was double that of the previous year. 
In 1879 the sturgeon were so thick iu Baker Bay that we did not consider it safe, early in the season, 
to put our gill nets out. The fish were so numerous and large that they were able to destroy a great 
amount of netting. For years every sturgeon taken was mutilated or killed with an ax and thrown 
back iuto the water. Theishores of the river would be lined with dead sturgeon, and numbers could 
always be seen floating down the river; It is quite different now. 
The destruction of small uumarketable sturgeon in trap nets must be extremely 
large in the course of a season. The* salmon fisliermen pay little attention to the 
sturgeon and have no interest in tlie preservation of the suppljb A salmon trap near 
Saud Island, lifted on June. 23, was observed. to contain over 50 sturgeon, none over 2 
feet long, aud some only 10 or 12 iuches long, albof wliicb were dumped into the boat 
and consequently destroyed. On this occasion only a few salmon were caught, which, 
were gaffed out of the net, and it would have been an easy matter to permit the small 
sturgeon to escape. 
