attended by the fish barons of Alaska. They
bait the hook and our well meaning but ignor
ant Congressmen take the bait, hook and line.
However, two men appeared before the last
Congressional hearing who called themselves Al
aska fishermen. It was on account of their
testimony that Congressmen declared that seines
were as bad or worse than traps.
. Mr. I. N. Ilylen, of the Alaska Fishermen’s
Union was the first. Congressmen paid nlo at
tention to the part of his testimony, page 210,
Which declared that trap fishing should be abol
ished, but they took him at his word wrhen he
^aid purse seines should be abolished, page 215.
And yet the entire force of his* testimony
should be gaged by his statement on page 222:
Mr. Free, of California asked him, “Will you just
describe to us, as a purse-seine fisherman, what
you do and what happens between the time you
t>ut your seine and the fish are put into the
boat?”
: Mr. Ilylen. “On the purse seine question 1
am not so well posted, because I have not oper
ated seines. I can only judge from an under
standing of it like you men here,” and then; he
goes on and tells about fishing on Puget Sound,
eager Congressmen not realizing that there is
po comparison between fishing conditions on
Puget Sound and Alaska.
i Mr. Ilylen is accepted by Congressmen as an
authority on fishing in Southeastern Alaska, and
yet from his own testimony, page 213, the only
tirdelHylen fished in these parts was “In 1891,
I think it was, I fished up the Stikine River, out
bf Wrangell, and then we used gill nets for the
fed -Salmon. * * * Because of the install
ment of traps all through the coast of south
eastern Alaska the red salmon is entirely gone
in that district and the packers have not used
any traps on the Stikine River for years and
years.” -
As a matter of fact, gill-net fishing, is regular
ly conducted on the Stikine flats every year;
purse seines and traps have never been used in
the immediate vicinity of this river.
Mr. Ilylen advises the use of gill-nets and
beach seines only, page 216. As a matter of
fact neither method is practical with three or
four exceptions. Gill-nets can be used at the
mouths of the larger streams where the water
is muddy, but cannot be used elsewhere to ad
vantage because the water is too clear, the
nights too light and too much phosphorescence
in the water. Beach seines cannot be used ex
cept at the mouths of streams because fish do
riot school to suit the beach seine elsewhere and
also because the shores of these parts are toe
steep and rocky.
Just who is Mr. Ilylen? On; page 219, he
says: “I have been secretary of the Alaska Fisli
ernien’s Union since 1902, up to 1921, and in 1902
we organized. We had about 3,500 men, or
practically speaking, all the actual fishermen,
gill-net fishermen, that go into Alaska.”
Page 221; Mr. Free. Do just gill net fisher
men belong to this Union;, or do purse seine
fishermen belong to it, too?
Mr. Hylen. Trap fishermen, gill net fisher
men—we have no purse seine fishermen.
Mr. Larsen. Tell us how long it takes to
operate that seine, how long it takes to throw
that seine around and how long it takes you
to take it up?
Mr. Ilylen. Well, maybe it will take, some
times, ten minutes to throw it around, and it
would take ten or fifteen minutes to haul it up,
and it would take a couple of hours to get it
ready for action again.
Mr. Larsen. Assuming that it takes two
hours then, how many hours do you work out
of the 24; do you work the whole 24?
Mr. Hylen. Sometimes, if there is a school
of fish, I have stayed up sometimes 48 hours at
one stretch.
The trouble with Hylen is that he is trying to
tell of purse seine fishing by going on his experi
ence as a gill netter. No seiner could possibly
fish at any time except during day light hours.
It cannot be done for the simple reason that we
have to see the fish above the water before we
can make a set. Gill netters can fish 48 hours
at one stretch when the run of fish warrant
because in muddy water and the tide favorable,
fish are striking all the time at some portion
of the gill net.
In an article of this kind, it is impossible to
point out the very numerous instances of abso
lute ignorance that Hylen exhibits for the edi
fication of Congressmen.
Mr. Free asks him, page 221, How long are
the nets (purse seines) ? and Hylen answers “Oh,
they vary;-I do not know how long they have
them now. It is a long time since I was on a
purse-seine outfit,” and a few minutes later this
same “expert” says, “On the purse-seine ques
tion I am not so well posted, because I-have not
operated a purse-seine.”
Andrew Furuseth also corroborated the testi
mony of Hylen on the matter of purse seines, but
his testimony should be thrown out for on page
307 he says, “Personally I have never used a
purse seine and have never been a member of a
crew that used it, so that I have no practical ex
perience in purse seining. He should add that he
has never done any kind of fishing in South
eastern Alaska.
When Congress is willing to subpoena fisher
men to testify, they will get the truth. They
will never find out about Southeastern Alaska
by calling gill-netters from Bristol Bay, or trap
owners who are forced to deceive Congressmen
or see their traps abolished at once.