UC San Diego Library – Scripps Digital Collection

Catch Bulletins provide records of California's commercial fisheries and their value to fishermen. They also summarize the marine party boat anglers' sport catch.

This report for 1960 is the 20th in the series. Prior records have been published regularly beginning with those for 1926 and 1927. In recent years, a need for faster publication of catch statistics has made it desirable to publish annually instead of biennially.

Bulletin titles have varied slightly through the years. The first 15, for the years 1926 through 1952, were entitled "The commercial fish catch of California" but since 1953 bulletins have been entitled "The marine fish catch of California". Addition of marine sport catch information to bulletins influenced this title change to more accurately describe the bulletins' scope.

Each commercial fish dealer makes a quadruplicate record of every catch he receives from fishermen, and one copy is promptly sent to the Department of Fish and Game. Each party-boat operator records each trip's catch and these records are also sent to the Department. This complete enumeration of the catch insures greater accuracy than any known sampling plan. After several intermediate steps, basic data are summarized with the Department's I.B.M. punch card facilities into essentially the same form as the tables published in this bulletin.

Published figures are of national and international concern, but they are used primarily by fisheries scientists and legislators to effectively manage and regulate California's important fisheries. Chambers of commerce, members of the fishing industry, educators, and others also find the catch statistics of considerable value in meeting their respective needs.