UC San Diego Library – Scripps Digital Collection

Landing bulletins provide basic catch records of amounts and values of various marine resources taken by California's commercial fisheries while summarizing catches of the partyboat sportfishing industry. Small quantities of freshwater fish taken commercially in inland areas are also detailed. These figures are of local, national, and international significance to fishery scientists and others interested in the wise utilization and management of California's living marine resources.

This report for 1973 is the 33rd in a series stemming from the first gathering of commercial fisheries landing data by the California Department of Fish and Game in 1916 and the subsequent first publication of these catch data in 1929 for the years 1926 and 1927.

California's fishery statistics are based on a system where fish dealers, processors, and operators of sportfishing partyboats send duplicate copies of their landing records to the department. Fish Bulletin 86, which reported the catch for 1950, describes fully the system and methods used in collecting commercial fish records. Basic principles remain the same today as then, although methods and equipment have been changed as necessary. The partyboat fishing system is described in Fish Bulletin 145 by Parke Young (1969).