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pans. In the year 1872 the salmon caught amounted to 37,481, sokus plus 8 fish; 1 soku=20 fish total fish 749,628, they average when cured 6 lbs. (Jap.) in weight equal to 8 lbs. English. 45 Ainos and 67 Japanese seines were used in the fisheries.
The Government tax is twenty-five per cent. paid in kind. The Ainos pay no tax. The owner of a river station is supposed to clear $300 to $500 in a saason.
The Japanese fishermen employed on the fisheries get $30 for the season which extends over the mouths of October, November and December; many Ainos are also employed.
In August and September the fish masters are employed in preparing for the coming season. The river is marked off into stations for both Japanese and Ainos. The Japanese then clear their stations of driftwood and with snag boats they raise the snags and tow them out of the way. The banks have to be cleared and prepared so as to facilitate the hauling of the seines. Ranges of sheds are put up and heavily thatched, stores of salt, rice, fishing gear, &c., are collected, and all these preparations are completed by the end of September. Soon after the arrival of the salmon is reported from the coast fishing stations, and in a few days they commence passing up the river on their way to the spawning beds in the upper waters. On the Ishi-kari, each station has two nets and two boats, and crews always at work from dawn until dark. A seine having been shot the upper end is made fast to a post in the bank and the lower end, or rather the rope attached to it, is passed around a capstan which is manned by the boat’s crew that have shot the seine; the current assists in setting the net into the bank, along which it lies forming a long trough which contains the fish taken, the men then leave the capstan and work the net by hand, turning the take into a fish-boat which carries them to the stage used for landing and cleaning the fish. As soon as the first seine is half hauled the second one is shot outside of the first one, and hauled in its turn. When the fish are secured the boat’s crew pick up the seine into the
