Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-05-15
The Scarcity of Salmon.

EDS. RECORD MON In your issue of
Saturday, May Sth, I noticed an article on
the scarcity of salmon" in which you
say "Of course, while the river is so
high, it could not be expected that many
would be caught in this neighborhood. !"
Now, we fishermen at CORTLAND always
| look Tor good spring run of salmon when
the water in the river Is about level with its
banks, and this spring there were other in
dicatiOns of good run besides high water.
AT the commencement of the run the
salmon proved to be very large-in fact,
rger than for many years, averaging
| about twenty pounds to the fish. That is
a very good indication; yet notwithstand-
| ing all this up to the present time there
| has been the poorest run ever known on
the Sacramento river. High water, low
water, or large fish, may have nothing to
| do with the run; but as &c. w. Hume s"
| says: the salmon have been decreasing
in the river since 1881" True; but not by
sea-hons. 1t is as the San Francisco ReDoTt
! says: " There are too many fishermen"
The fact shows for itself Allow only one
| third of The nets that are laid to entrap the
! salmon to be equally distributed in the
| bays and rivers, and the number of salmon
| that are caught yearly by the other two
| thirds be allowed to get to the spawning
grounds, you would see in three or four
years the bays and rivers stocked with
| salmon again.
Does it not stand to reason that "2, 600
| fishermen and 900 boats " and nets, form
ing Gordon, as it were, in the bays, at the
mouths of rivers in the rivers, and, in
fact, every avenue that leads to the breed
ing places, so that not one salmon in a
thousand that starts can ever reach the
breeding grounds-that under these cir
cumstances they certainly must get less?
Forty-nine salmon out of every fifty that
are caught above the mouth of Old river
on the Sacramento, show net-marks, show
ing that they have had to run the gantlet
Another cause, and one of the worst
is the Bradford bill that was passed
by the last Legislature, changing the
close season from August to September.
have an old RECORD U MON of the date of
February 8, 1884, before me- containing an
article on Food Fish of the Sacramento. -
in which Commissioner Buckingham saws
about fall salmon They commence run
ming in the month of August" True
Then, when Mr.. Buckingham knew the
run commenced i'll August, why did he not
! raise his voice against the passage of the
Bradford bill Mr.. Buckingham himself
told me that he knew the bill was wrong,
but there was such pressure brought to
bear In favor OF MIR. Bradford, that any
thing he could have said would have had
no effect. | think being at the head of the
Fish Commission, Mr.. Buckinghams voice
would have had some force against the
passage of the bill.
When August of each year was the close
season, then in September fishermen found
the bays and rivers full of salmon; but
since September has been made the close
season, and the LIST of October the opening,
we find but few fish in the river, simply
because they are nearly all caught in Au-
gust before they can get into the river, or
anywhere near the spawning grounds. If
that is not destructive policy, do not
know what it is. If it is not seen to by the
Fish Commissioners at the next Legislature
that the present salmon law is changed.
and proper law enacted, the run of salmon
i'll our rivers will become thing of the
past. Yours, etc, g. ". Stout.
CORTLAND, May 10. 1886