13 () BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
few lisli seen would indicate tliat it is not, and this scarcity of salmon may be owing 
to the wanton fishing of the lake. On the northeast shore is a small stream which, 
during the time of our visit, had no flow of surface water; large pools stood in the 
gravelly bed. Around the mouth a few dea<l fish were seen; in fact, the lake nowhere 
showed an abundance of salmon. 
On the western bank of the southeuvst arm of the lake, near the outlet, is an 
Indian’s shack, and at the time of our visit a number of Indians were smoking and 
drying humpbacks and cohoes. Below the shack is a rather neat log cabin with 
drying racks for nets around it, and a short distance beyond is a board tishing-hut 
used for storing nets. In different jiarts of the lake stakes were projecting above the 
surface, and near the outlet they were especially numerous, their use being quite 
evident. Across the outlet at the lake and back for a distance of nearly half a mile 
were lines of heavy stakes running aci’oss the channel, to which gill nets are secured. 
These nets form an almost impassable barrier, and the wonder is that any fish ever 
get through to the spawning-grounds. Uiion the arrival of the vessel no nets were 
found, but a few days before my visit an Indian trader from the Copper Eiver district 
came to Orca for his winter-trade stock; he said in passing this point — the head of 
tlie outlet — the nets were so thick he thought he would have to cut them in order to 
gain a passage for his boat. 
LAKE EYAK. 
Lake Eyak has been fished every year since the canneries have been in operation. 
The first year’s pack was almost entirely from this source; but from a locality once 
good for 200,000 redfish — some say 250,000 — it has dwindled down to 11,000 in 1897. 
Fishermen think that if the lake and river were not fished, the approaches to the 
mouth could be made to yield 25,000 redfish in a short tinie. 
