! 58 57,065,402 68 42 26,968,233 32 *Includes catch taken by U. S. vessels and shipped through Canada to the United States in bond. products. Filleted fresh-water fish receipts amounted to 526,000 pounds, 21 times the 1942 volume. They consisted chiefly of blue pike, lake herring, pickerel, sauger, sheepshead, suckers, whitefish, and yellow pike. Filleted salt-water products totaled 8,296,000 pounds, an increase of 13 percent over 1942, made up principally of 18 species including cod, flounders, haddock, mackerel, sea herring, pollock, rosefish, sablefish, sole, and whiting. Again in 1943, the three leading species in volume were fresh and frozen halibut with a total of 11,436,000 pounds, fresh and frozen shrimp with 8,793,000 pounds, and fresh and frozen lake trout with 7,002,000 pounds. The near total failure of the 1943 smelt run in the Great Lakes, due to an unexplained phenomenon of nature, decreased the receipts of this variety to 32 percent of the 1942 total. Greater employment of formerly unutilized or under-utilized species was reflected in receipts of the following varieties: cusk, eel (ocean) pout, grouper, hake, lingcod, permit, rockfish, sockeye salmon, shark, and squid. The filleting and smoking of carp, buffalofish, and sheepshead also was carried on fairly extensively at various times throughout the year. Table V demonstrates that the form in which products were marketed followed rather closely the 1942 trend from frozen products to an expanded utilization of fresh and filleted forms. of 33 leading varieties observed, 26 clearly indicated the 1943 trend to fresh and filleted fish, while 7 varieties showed a decline. In the frozen category, receipts of 15 species increased. A considerable proportion consisted of frozen fillets or were varieties handled for the first time during the year. Twelve species showed pronounced declines from 1942 frozen receipts. Classifications and weights of species used by most dealers are listed in Table VI. The market has no fixed standards of grade or weight, but small fish are required to meet legal length restrictions imposed by State laws. Table VI Names, Classifications, and Approximate Weights as Used in the Chicago Wholesale Market Eviscerated, head off, and sometimes tail and other fins removed. NOTE:--There are no fixed standards, other than those established by the OPA, in the Chicago Wholesale Market covering grades or weights. The classifications and weights listed above represent those generally used by most dealers. Weights will vary to some extent during certain seasons depending upon the fatness of the fish. In all cases, irrespective of weight, small fish must meet size (legal length) requirements imposed by individual State fishing laws. Table VII Item FRESH-WATER FISH Blue pike 12 months Monthly Index of Receipts of Certain Fishery Products Received (Expressed for each item in percentages of its greatest monthly volume.) Largest 629,657 87,588 72 45 36 75 483,541 48 100 90 74 81 858 96 Lake trout 6,508,788 914,910 27 31 34 24 23 14 80 100 92 30 40 48 47 27 25 100 71 492,760 175,068 3 56 100 59 2 21 40 23 39 100 60 39 76 100 24 18 42 10 25 3 7 34 16 13 29 35 52 51 Item 12 months Table VII 10 Monthly Index of Receipts of Certain Fishery Products Received Largest month Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug, Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. Avg Lbs. 144,000 61 75 65 30 shucked 648,025 136,553 77 45 41 47,309 548 76 48 100 40 3 frozen Total all shell 46 100 37 30 50 2589 100 69 59 1 26 36 67 84 100 24 71 5 28 13 41 120 11 73 100 91 70 67 82 80 86 78 Spiny lobster tails, fish, etc. Grand total, 1943 11,705,684 1,956,022 32 45 84,033,635 8,733,883 59 1942 68,167,357 7.179,247 81 1941 65,569,161 6,318,346 87 1940 59,432,557 5.991,779 68 87 1939 48,418,745 5,658,461 66 45 75 62 82 64 The month of heaviest trading in 1943 was May, whereas October had been the most important month in volume in each of the previous four years. The shift was due chiefly to concentrated receipts of fresh halibut, shrimp, lake trout, and sheepshead in May, these four items accounting for 49 percent of the month's total. Smallest receipts were recorded in January, when 5,124,936 pounds arrived, Fresh-water receipts were largest in November, but remained uniformly high throughout the year. Salt-water deliveries came in largest amounts in August, with May through September--when fresh halibut was being received--a period of outstanding activity. November, the month of largest arrivals of shucked oysters and frozen shrimp, recorded by far the largest receipts of shellfish. Table VII lists by percentage index the relative importance of each month's receipts of each item. 0-0-0 VESSELS DENIED SHARK FISHING PERMITS Coordinator of Fisheries Harold L. Ickes on February 1 denied the appeal of the captains of four West Coast fishing vessels from a decision denying them permits to fish for sharks out of Seattle. The permits had been denied by the Area Coordinator because the vessels had been taken out of the crucial pilchard or sardine fishery at San Francisco. This was the first occasion on which such action had been taken against a fishing vessel for abandoning the pilchard fishery. The vessels, all of Seattle, are of the purse seiner type. The owners are: Arthur Edwards, Marconia Ole Edwards, J. B. Edwards The pilchard fishery produces some 25 percent in weight of all U. S. and Alaska fish production. Due to the great importance of the fishery as a producer of low-cost, highprotein content food as well as essential byproducts such as Vitamin D oil and fish meal, special efforts to maintain production have been made ever since the beginning of the war. This season the fishery has been regulated by the Coordinator of Fisheries under a Coordinated Pilchard Production Plan. One of the provisions of the order establishing this plan is that no West Coast vessel which has previously fished for pilchards may fish for pilchards or any other fish without a permit from the Coordinator. This was designed to maintain the size of the pilchard fleet, which has been considerably diminished by requisitioning craft by the armed services, at as high a level as possible. The food production of vessels in the pilchard fishery is approximately one hundred times greater than in the shark fishery. This year the production of pilchards has been considerably lower than the quota set by the WFA. Despite the continued need for production of pilchards, the four captains took their vessels out of the fishery and applied for permits to fish for sharks out of Seattle. In their appeal from the action of the Area Coordinator in denying these permits they stated that (1) they were not fully aware of the terms of the regulations, (2) that the pilchard fishing was unsatisfactory, and (3) that they were unable to hold their crews in the pilchard fishery. The Coordinator found as fact that copies of the regulations, and explanations of the regulations, were widely distributed and were readily available; that the vessels left before it could be definitely determined whether the pilchard fishery would be relatively successful this season; and that no reasonable effort, if any, was made to hold the crews. Under the Coordinator's decision, permits for shark fishing may be given to the owners of the four vessels at the end of the pilchard season at San Francisco, February 15, or at such a time as the Area Coordinator may determine that continuation of vessels in the fishery would not measurably increase production. PILCHARD PRODUCTION DIRECTIONS SUSPENDED BETWEEN SEASONS Area II Coordinator's General Directions 1 to 7, inclusive, were suspended for the several ports in Area II, for the period between sardine seasons as defined for those ports. Until the opening of the season in the fall of 1944, the General Directions will not be applicable at the ports of San Francisco and Monterey after 12:01 a.m., February 17, 1944, nor at the port of San Pedro after 12:01 a.m., March 2, 1944. This action was taken in General Direction No. 8, dated February 15, issued by the Coordinator of Area II, Office of the Coordinator of Fisheries. FAILURE OF GREAT LAKES SMELT RUN FOR 1944 FORECAST The disaster which wiped out uncounted millions of Great Lakes smelt last year is believed to have been so complete that in all probability none at all will be taken this spring when smelt normally swarm into the tributary streams of Lake Michigan and other Great Lakes, the Office of the Coordinator of Fisheries reported February 16. The smelt, small silvery fish related to the salmon family, normally provide a catch of about five million pounds by commercial fishermen, plus perhaps two or three times as much taken by amateur fishermen at the time of the spring spawning runs. Last winter the first indication of serious mortality among the smelt was noticed in southern Lake Michigan, at a time when fishermen in the northern part of the lake, were making their usual large catches through the ice. As the winter progressed, the mysterious epidemic spread northward throughout Lake Michigan and into the other Great Lakes with the result that not more than a million pounds were caught in the entire area. Dr. John Van Oosten, Area Coordinator of Fisheries for the Great Lakes, reported recently that the only smelt catch he had heard of this winter was that of a single fisherman who took two pounds about 20 fish from his nets. Another indication that the smelt have been practically wiped out is the fact that last summer scientists found none in the stomachs of lake trout, which normally prey on smelt during the summer, Dr. Van Oosten said. Reports from the State of New York indicate that the smelt died out in the Finger Lakes also last winter. Although a large number of the fish were examined by pathologists for traces of disease, no clue to the cause of the mysterious epidemic has been found. Smelt are not native to the Great Lakes but were introduced from New England in 1906. From initial plantings of about sixteen million eggs in Crystal Lake, Michigan, they multiplied and spread throughout the Great Lakes area. The center of the commercial fishery is now Lake Michigan, and more specifically the Green Bay area, Not only commercial fishermen, but amateurs of all ages for many years have looked forward to the annual spawning runs of the smelt. Some time between mid-March and mid-April, or as soon as the ice broke up in the streams, the smelt in previous years have entered the tributaries of the lakes in enormous numbers and were scooped up in dipnets by smelt enthusiasts who lined the banks. Since the smelt ran chiefly at night, the dipping continued throughout the night, and large bonfires were built on the banks. The smelt has been considered one of the choicest of panfishes and carload lots were shipped to New York, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, and other cities. Whether some remnant of the Great Lakes smelt population has escaped destruction and may eventually restore the fishery is unknown. |