The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1907-08-03
S0CkEYE RUN
CONTINUES LIGHT
Small Catches Reported from Traps
and Purse SeinerS
Sockeyes Selling For 35 Cents Each
to San Juan Fish Co., Which
Company Makes Large Shipments
to Eastern and European Markets.

Company Makes Large Shipments
to Eastern and European Markets.
III 7 this time of the year FIVE, SIX
"a and seven yeas ago tens of
thousands of sockeye salmon we're
being caught daily in the traps in
this county and great numbers also
in Whatcom county and other locali-
ties along the Sound. During the
year of the last big run" of sockeyes
more fish we're caught in a single
trap in one day than all of the traps
combined average to catch daily now.
Up to the middle of this week the
largest catch reported from the P.
A. F. Co.'s three big traps on the
salmon banks off the south end of San
Juan island. considered among the
very best locations on the Sound, was
$4,000, and these were taken from
the three traps after they had been
fishing three days. There are fifty
or more purse seine outfits on the
banks, each crew numbering six men,
and up to last Monday no 'outfit"
had caught more than about 1000 fish
since the season opened and most of
them had not caught, half that num-
Der. Since then number of fairly
good catches have been reported.
The San Juan Fish Company's
trap at Eagle point, which has here
tofore been quite a profitable one,
has been operated this year at a con-
siderable loss, due in large measure,
it is said, to the fact that the trap
was driven quite differently this year,
under the instructions of the COM
pany's general trap foreman, who
believed that change in it's location
and direction would increase the
catch. This company buys many fish
from the purse seiners and pays for
sockeyes delivered at it's steamer on
the banks five cents pound, or
about thirty-five cents a fish. This
is five cents above the market
price" established by most of the
companies buying and seven times the
price paid for sockeyes at the height
of the phenomenal run of few years
ago.
The San Juan company, although
it does but little canning, claims to
handle more salmon in the course of
a year than any other company oper-
ating on Puget Sound, not even ex-
cepting the P. A. F. The salmon
which they take from their traps or
buy during the summer are packed
in ice in boxes on board their steamer
and taken to Seattle where they are
cleaned and placed in cold storage
rooms where the temperature is
close to zero and often be-
low. After being frozen they are
dipped in water and given thin
coating of ice and when shipped are
rolled in sheets of oiled paper and
packed in boxes in refrigerator cars.
The company makes large shipments
Of frozen salmon to Germany, France
and other European countries.
salmon are sliced in thin
strips and packed in haf-pound pa
per cartons, very convenient for
lunches and picnics. Halibut is
handled very successfully in the same
way. The company is now buying
and putting in cold storage tons upon
tons Of smelt, considerable portion
of the surply coming from the Quin-
ault river, on the coast about half
way between Cape Flattery and the
Columbia river. Although smelt are
ootainable in one locality or another
the wear round it is said to be diff
cult to get enough of them to supply
the demand. So great is the demand
,or fish that even the despised dog
salmon, considered practically worth
less few years ago except for oil
and which few people even thought
Of eating, now find ready market
and is cons idered by pany people
who are good judges as palatable as
the humpback variety. Last fall and
winter dog salmon sold as high IS
thirty-five cents each.