Threadfins from the Eastern Pacific — KLAWE and Alverson 
167 
from 7-140 mm (Table 2 ). The larger speci- 
mens, over 100 mm, were captured in the 
vicinity of Chame Point, Panama, and San Bias, 
Mexico, and we believe that they are not repre- 
sentative of the sizes to be found in the open 
sea. We have no specimens of this species from 
the tuna bait fishery. 
The bait fishery for threadfin is mostly acci- 
dental. The threadfin are encountered by chance 
on the tuna grounds and, if weather, bait supply, 
time available, etc. are favorable, the clippers 
will attempt to catch them. For example, one 
of us (W.L.K.) in early April 1957 was aboard 
the clipper M/V "Mary Lou,” Captain S. Par- 
migiani commanding, which at the time was 
fishing approximately 50 miles off San Jose, 
Guatemala. Numerous schools of threadfin were 
observed and at times scattered schools were 
observed as far as the eye could see. In one 
attempt 100 scoops 3 of P. opercular is were 
captured from one of these schools. 
3 One scoop is equal to about 8 lb of fish. 
