. California fish and game. Fisheries -- California; Game and game-birds -- California; Fishes -- California; Animal Population Groups; Pêches; Gibier; Poissons. 178 CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME "CHRISTMAS TREES" IN THE CALIFORNIA SARDINE FISHERY' By John F. Janssen, Jr. California State Fisheries Laboratory Division of Fish and Game Since the opening of the present sardine season on August 1, 1937, there has been an apparent abundance of small sardines off central California. Young- sardines are always present in these waters, but this year the fishermen have encountered greater numbers
. California fish and game. Fisheries -- California; Game and game-birds -- California; Fishes -- California; Animal Population Groups; Pêches; Gibier; Poissons. 178 CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME "CHRISTMAS TREES" IN THE CALIFORNIA SARDINE FISHERY' By John F. Janssen, Jr. California State Fisheries Laboratory Division of Fish and Game Since the opening of the present sardine season on August 1, 1937, there has been an apparent abundance of small sardines off central California. Young- sardines are always present in these waters, but this year the fishermen have encountered greater numbers than usual. These small fish gill in sardine purse seines and ring nets, occasionally to the extent that the webbing is almost obscured. When a purse seine is hoisted back aboard the boat on the boom, the suspended section assumes the general shape of a Christmas tree. Be- cause the seething, silvery mass of struggling fish looks like ornaments sparkling under the bright flood lights, the fishermen coined the new expression, "Christ- mas tree," which has al- ready become the standard term for a netful of gilled fish. It is both a beautiful and a pitiful spectacle—pit- iful when one considers that it takes hours of toil by the fishermen to '' take down the ornaments,'' and that all the gilled fish are wasted. Can- neries will not accept these fish because they are too small to can and their oil content is so low they can not be reduced profitably. Sardines of similar sizes usually school together but in any school there may be a few individuals much larger or smaller than their. Fig. 64. Putting a sardine "Christmas tree" into a tanning vat at Monterey to boil out the gilled fish. A great many of the fish have already been removed by shaking the net. Photo- graphed by J. B. Phillips, November 30, 1937. 1 Submitted for publication, January, Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for
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