128 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
refused to pay tliis amount, tlie Indians declined to furnish any fish. In 1897 a com- 
promise was effected, the cannery steamer calling at the mouth of the Ohilkoot and 
paying 6 cents a fish. The Ohilkats deliver at the cannery and receive 8 cents a fish. 
The small nnmber taken in 1897 is due to the Klondike excitemeut. Most of tlie 
Indians stopped fishing and went to Dyea and Skagway to freiglit over the passes. 
About half of the white fishermen also left for the gold fields. 
From the large number of redfish taken in Ohilkat Inlet it is probable that the 
river is a very prolific redfish stream, but it is so broken in its course that fishing is 
very difficult. The earliest fish are a few king salmon, followed, tlie latter part of 
June, by the redfish, which continue running until late in September, when the dog 
salmon come in so thick and the redfish decrease to such an extent that it is barely 
profitable to take them. The humpbacks also run in large numbers in September. 
The Chilkat redfish are regarded by packers as the choicest in Alaska. 
The run in the Ohilkoot begins a little later than in the Ohilkat. The redfish in 
both streams are about the same average weight and size, but fishermen claim that 
they can recognize a difference in shape, and it is stated that a Ohilkoot fish is very 
rarely found on the Ohilkat side of the peninsula, and vice versa. 
Seines have been tried unsuccessfully, probably because there are no good 
seining beaches. 
A sturgeon was taken in the Taku in 1896 weighing 12 pounds, and one in the 
Ohilkat the same year of similar weight. Ko steelheads have been noticed, but Dolly 
Varden trout are numerous during the season. 
It was learned from white people in the vicinity that the Indians also use nets in 
both rivers, blocking all the channels and entering streams, in all directions, to make 
the catch, and that they fish on the spawning-grounds. It was also reported that not 
only is Lake Ohilkoot fished, but the spawning stream as well, and that traps have 
been placed in the lake under the guidance of an expert. The gill-net fishermen are 
reported not to observe the weekly close season. 
With the Ohilkat region the examinations conducted in 1897 by the Albatross in 
southeast Alaska were finished. They include all the canneries and a number of the 
fisheries, but (here are still a large number of streams to be examined in the future. 
There are said to be redfish streams entering Swanson Harbor, Bartlett, Duiidas, and 
Taylor bays, Idaho Inlet, aud Port Althorp. Probably none of these streams contain 
many redfish, otherwise the cannery at Bartlett Bay would not have been abandoned. 
At Port Althorp there was a saltery operated by Ford & Stokes, now said to be 
abandoned. At the southern entrance to Cross Sound is Yakobi Island, separated 
from Chichagof Island by Lisiauski Strait. Surge Bay makes in to Yakobi Island 
on the western shore, and has a stream fished some years by the Eedfish Bay cannery, 
from which as many as 16,000 redfish have been taken. South of Point Urey is a 
large sound or strait, with numerous arms, bordered by islands, rocks, and reefs, on 
the ocean side of Chichagof Island. On this sound are Stranger Eiver, O’Hara Bay, 
Olsen Bay, aud Smith Bay, having redfish and coho streams, aud fished at times by 
the Eedfish Bay cannery. 
