Salt Water Fisheries of the Pacific Coast [pp. 149-163]

Salt Water Fisheries of thze Pacific Coast.
the meat from the shell. With the
shrimp are sometimes quantities of
small flounders, soles, kingfish, and
smelt. The gravel mixed with the fish
is removed, and the fish sorted by means
of graduated seives, after which they
are sacked and ready for shipment to
China. In I888, the export was 769,66o
pounds of meat, worth $76,966, and
3,842,200 pounds of shells, valued at
$38,482.
The only other fishery the Chinese
pursue to any extent is that of the sturgeon, from which they make caviar, and
extractthe white spinal cord, which they
consider a delicacy. As with the other
fishery, their methods are cruel and
wasteful. The sturgeon trawl has been
introduced from China, though it is illegal. Of this Mr. Alexander says: Each trawl has an average of eighty barbless
hooks, which are as sharp as needles. They are
fastened to the gagings in clusters of eight and ten,
and when in the water are swung about by the
action of the tide like the tentacles of an octopus
reaching out for prey. A fish which approaches
within a length of itself is pretty sure of being hooked
by one or more of these treacherous devices. When
a fish of any considerable size gets fastened to a hook
it is sure in its struggle for freedom to become entangled with other hooks, and finally, in its flouncing
about, will become completely incased in a network
of gagings and hooks, like a shark which has rolled
itself up in a net.... The trawl is always set
off bottom, and from three to five fathoms below the
surface, according to the depth of the water, and the
way in which the fish caught are thought or known
to be moving.
The lines are anchored and buoyed in
the same manner as cod lines.
The Chinese fishermen are fertile in
resource. Mr. A. V. La Motte has observed a novel mode of entrapping sturgeon in great quantities. At low tide a
long, single-wire, barbed-wvire fence is
constructed for several hundred yards.
The wire is 6 or 8 inches above the mud
flats where they are built. At high tide
the sturgeon pass safely over the obstruction, to feed on the crustaceans
near shore. As the tide slackens they
recede, with their heads shoreward, until
their tails strike on the barbed-wire
fence. They endeavor to go shoreward,
but the receding tide backs them down
against the fence, which they cannot
pass over or under. The fisherman then
passes along on the outside of the fence
with his scow, and clubs his victims to
death, pulls in those he wants with his
gaff, and leaves the others to float away
on the next tide.
Great pains are taken by these Oriental fishermen. At the Chinese camp
at Pescadero a strange method of frightening fish into the gill-nets, set near the
rocks close to shore, was seen. A small
scow is sculled around them, while a
man stands in the bow, and throws a
pole into the water in such a manner
that it will return to his hands, and another man squats on the bottom of the
boat, and drums on the middle seat with
two sticks.
At all the principal fisheries, such as
San Diego, San Pedro, Port Harford,
Monterey, and the Channel Islands, the
Chinese pursue their trade of gathering
abalones and squid for export to China,
selling the shells of the abalones to
Americans, for ornamental shell work.
At San Diego there are fifty-two men
engaged in gathering abalones.
Monterey is the principal squid and
octopus fishery, of which the export
value was $I3,620 in I888.
At that time there were 934 Chinese
employed in the fisheries of California,
exporting abalone shells and meat to the
value of $78,576, and shrimps and prawns
worth $ I41,688.
As the development of the fishing
industry in the great center is quite incomplete, the same is even more true of
the lesser salt water fishing centers, such
as Puget Sound, Monterey Bay, Port
Harford, Santa Barbara, San Pedro, and
San Diego.
Monterey Bay is well known for the
abundance and variety of its fish, and
is especially noted as the dividing line
of navigation of many species found in
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[Aug.