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REPORT OF BOARD OF FISH AND GAME COMMISSIONERS. 
NOTES ON THE STRIPED BASS IN CALIFORNIA. 
By N. B. Scofield. 
The striped bass is to be found in the San Francisco Bay region or 
in the lower Sacramento or San Joaquin rivers, in varying numbers, in 
any month of the year. In the lower rivers, however, more of them 
are caught in the spring and autumn. 
The spring run, as it is termed, is mostly of mature or “spawn bass,’ 5, 
evidently ascending the rivers to spawn, and takes place during April, 
May and June. The average weight of those fish is between twelve and 
fifteen pounds. Thirty-pound fish are common and occassionally fifty 
and sixty-pound fish are taken. 
The fall run on the rivers commences usually in September, the time 
being somewhat variable, and lasts from two weeks to two months. The 
fish of this run are smaller; immature bass, not often over five or six 
pounds, and according to the fishermen are bright, fresh run fish. The 
small sized bass are more apt to be found in schools, and the large 
catches in seine or gill net are usually of this size. In the lower bays 
they are often found on the flats voraciously feeding on schools of 
“sardines,” making a sucking noise similar to that of the carp when 
feeding at the surface of the water. Often a school of these bass will 
run into one of the numerous tule lined sloughs of the Sacramento and 
San Joaquin delta, evidently attracted by the small river fish, which 
they, drive before them, feeding as they go. Such schools are often, 
indicated by a large number of shags, gulls, and fishing birds, which 
take this advantage to feed upon the maimed and frightened fish. 
Occasionally a fisherman is lucky enough to find one of these schools, 
and will catch all his boat will hold. 
The striped bass seems to be quite notional. It will suddenly appear 
on the river drifts and as suddenly disappear again, and no trace, of 
them can be. found. The fishermen who have now had fifteen or twenty 
years of experience fishing for them in these waters still trust mostly 
to chance in locating them, not being able to figure out their movements 
other than that rough water spoils the fishing, the theory being that 
they leave the flats and sloughs in rough weather and take to the deeper 
parts of the river where the nets do not reach them. 
These bass are known to the river fishermen as winter bass. They 
ascend practically all of the sloughs at the mouths of streams, and run 
up the streams themselves. 
The spring run. The San Joaquin River has been usually selected 
by this run, and they are taken by the fishermen in gill nets between 
Antioch and Bouldin Island. By far the largest portion of the spawn 
bass are taken near Bouldin Island. The fish are seldom taken above* 
this point during the spawning season, but after spawning they ascend 
