The Chronicle-star combined with the Moss Point advertiser., 1949-09-30

the charges made against it by
sport fishermen and other COM
mercial fishers. Because of its i'm
portance to Jackson county, the
Chronicle-Sta and Advertiser is
reprinting it at lengthy
By DR.. James N. Gowanloch
Menhaden belong to a group
of fishes known as the Order Iso-
spondyli, which includes the Men
baden, the Herrings, the Shads,
the Tarpons and the Anchovies.
This group is generally de-
scribed as the "herring-like"
fishes. Certain species of the "her-
ring-like" fishes have highly spe-
cialized schooling habits whereby
they feed and migrate in often
vast concentrations unmixed with
either game fish or other COM
mercial fish. This | have repeat
edly seen. Huge catches of Men
baden and of Herring have come
directly under my observation
wherein as many as thirty tons Of
n of these species taken in a
single set of a purse seine will
include not more than twenty or
thirty individuals of any other
species.
Furthermore, when it does hap
pen, as frequently, that game fish
and other commercial fish may
be associated with these concen-
trated schools, the behavior of
these other fish is such that in
stantly these game fish and other
commercial fish sound" and can
not be captured before the tom
weight closes the net. One specif-
ic instance is of immediate inter-
est since in Mississippi waters
a friend of mine spent over $500
trying to catch Spanish Mackerel
with standard purse sein gear.
This was during June and July
of 1947. 1t was found that when
these schools of Mackerel and of
the False Albacore Zone of the
Monitos and, actually one of the
Tunas) were surrounded, these
fish sounded" and escaped, and
the entire operation was a COM
plete financial loss.
The most pertinent data is that
derived from Simmons. The pur-
pose of this research was to ascer-
tain what fish other than Mem
haden were caught in the stand
ard commercial (not experiment.
operation, carried out during the
period of June, 1948 to August IA,
1948, by a standard purse seine.
This boat caught more than
two and a half million Menhaden
during this period as against the
capture of two hundred and twen-
ty-eight game and commercial fish
and sixty-two Sharks together
with twenty-six Blue Crabs and
thirty-four Shrimp. Two pro-
foundry misleading sources of err
ror exist among sports and COM
mercial fishermen; first, the con-
fusion by them of small silvery
fishes which are actually the
young of various other species of
"herring-like" fishes, in not any
way commercially used, p~articu-
larly the Anehovies. which are not
processed anywhere on the Gulf
Coast; and, second, the even
worse confusion by shrimp fish
'ermen arising from the fact that
when the nets are raised fire.
quently innumerable small shrimp
r misinterpreted as being the
young of III extremely valuable
Lake Shrimp which forms the
basis of our shrimp fishery, the
greatest fishery of the entire
South and the sixth in volume
and fifth in value of all the fish
cries of the United States and
Alaska. These Shrimp which so
appear are not the young of larg-
er Shrimp and have no relation
ship whatever to the Shrimp COM
mercially fished. They belong to
an entirely different and, in Mis-
Sissippian waters, extremely
abundant species. the technical
name of which is Acetes. Unlike
our commercial Shrimp, they do
carry their eggs and have utterly
no commercial value or signifi-
canoe. I have been able to con-
vince fishermen of this fact by
bringing them into my laboratory
and showing them under the mi
croscope these tiny one-fourth
inch long Shrimp with their at
tached eggs, in which eggs the
fishermen could clearly see the
already formed embroyos, eyes
and all.
1t is highly necessary here fur
Their to state that the commercial
Shrimp which we call usually the
Lake Shrimp. White Shrimp or
Common Sea Shrimp affords ov-
er Q5 per cent of our commercial