48 
FISHERIES OF ALASKA IN 1909. 
PUGET SOUND FISHING FLEET. 
A fleet of Puget Sound power and sail vessels visits southeast 
Alaska during the months from October to March, when, owing to 
stormy weather and a scarcity of fish, it is not safe nor profitable to 
visit the fishing banks near the home ports. This fleet makes its 
headquarters mainly at Petersburg, at the head of Wrangell Nar- 
rows, shipping the catch home from Scow Bay, near by, via the 
regular steamship lines. The opening in September at Ketchikan of 
the new plant of the New England Fish Company drew some of the 
vessels to that town. During the year the fleet caught and shipped 
2,259,529 pounds of halibut, valued at $78,920. A few of the Puget 
Sound fleet of steamers also fish at times in Alaska waters, but it has 
been found impossible to secure accurate data as to their catches taken 
.in this region. None of the above data are included in the statistical 
tables of this report. 
THE HERRING FISHERY. 
The run of herring in southeast Alaska was fairly good during 
a part of the year. Nothing was done in central Alaska in the curing 
of herring, the plant on Simeonof Island not being operated for 
reasons stated at length in the 1908 report. According to trust- 
worthy information herring are quite abundant in Port Clarence, and 
some fishermen located at Grantle}^ Harbor, near the head of this 
bay, have been salting on a small scale during the past two or three 
years and selling the fish at Nome and the various settlements in that 
section of Alaska. 
During the summer herring are frequently found around the sal- 
mon cannery at Petersburg, and on several occasions the assistant 
agent caught a number with hook baited with salmon eggs, the fish 
taking the bait very eagerly. When opened their stomachs were 
found to be full of salmon eggs. 
HERRING FOR BAIT. 
In the fall of 1908 one of the floating salmon traps, which had 
been fitted with a herring spiller composed of 1^-inch mesh, was set 
in Tongass Narrows for the purpose of catching herring for bait. 
It met with very poor success, however. 
Herring is the bait almost universally employed in the halibut 
fishery of Alaska, but the supply has not kept pace with the demand. 
The question of a constant and abundant supply of bait is, in fact, 
the most serious problem confronting the halibut fishermen. At 
times the herring will appear in large numbers in the bays and 
sounds of southeast Alaska, but they are not in much demand until 
