Catch bulletins provide records of California's commercial fisheries and their value to fishermen. They also summarize the marine partyboat angler's catch. The report for 1965 is the 25th in the series. Prior records have been published regularly beginning with those for 1926 and 1927. In recent years, catch bulletins have been published annually instead of biennially. Records are obtained from each wholesale fish dealer or processor who receives fish from fishermen or who processes fish. Partyboat operators record each trip's catch, and these records are also sent to the Department. Clerical personnel in strategic locations (Eureka, San Francisco, Monterey, Terminal Island, and San Diego) maintain contact with fish dealers and local Fish and Game wardens to insure that the records are accurate and transmitted promptly. All data are edited and subsequently processed by electric accounting machines. Published figures are of national and international concern, but they are used primarily by fisheries scientists and state legislators to manage and regulate California's important fisheries. Chambers of commerce, members of the fishing industry, educators, and others also find these catch statistics of value. ============================ The Department of Fish and Game's "Catch Bulletins" annually present pounds of salmon landed in the commercial fishery and numbers of salmon taken by anglers on commercial partyboats. These values are compiled from market receipts and from partyboat log books, neither of which separate salmon by species. Minor corrections have been made by the Biostatistical Section to historical commercial troll landing figures. These corrections have been included in Table 1, which therefore varies slightly from previous catch bulletins. The Marine Resources Branch samples both commercial and sport salmon landings to provide estimates of species composition. The sport catch is estimated in number of fish and the commercial catch by both number and weight. Numbers of tagged and marked salmon landed are determined for both fisheries. Estimates are made by port-area and by month. The term "port-area" as used here refers to a group of ports which together form a meaningful unit for separating salmon catches. Ocean skiff fishermen are not required to record their catches, so the sampling system is used to estimate the total landings of this fishery as well as the items mentioned in the preceding paragraph. As used here, the term "skiff" includes all fishing boats other than partyboats or commercial fishing boats.
