Visitors to early Humboldt County seemed compelled to describe lyrically the area’s natural beauty, the friendliness of its people, and the great varieties of wildlife to be found.

Humboldt’s pioneers also appreciated the area’s beauty, but the most compelling problem for them was how to make a living in all that abundance. Many turned to one special aspect of the county’s natural endowment; the fish and other aquatic life that thrived in its streams and ocean. Of these, salmon and “salmon-trout” (steelhead) were the most sought- after but by no means the exclusive focus of this interest-other aquatic species were also important. The main purpose of this article is to explore the way early Humboldters tried to earn a living fishing for three of the county’s “other fish,” as reported in the Humboldt Times newspaper (in its various forms and titles) and other published material. Concluding paragraphs will tell about the “funny fish” that tickled reporters’ fancies.

Whales

Whales produced considerable income for Humboldt fishermen for a few decades. As early as September, 1854, the Times reported “immense shoals” of whales found offshore and suggested that with proper equipment local entrepreneurs might do very well in the whaling business if they established a processing plant on the bay. A few months later, the newspaper reported that a whaler, the Canton Packet from the Sandwich Islands, had been lying off the Humboldt bar, seeking whales but finding none; soon after she gave up and sailed south, a large pod of whales appeared in the area. At that time. Captain H. H. Buhne was rigging his small steamer, the Mary Anne, to hunt whales when it wasn’t being used on towing jobs. The California Whaling Company, a new enterprise based in Benicia, was also fitting out whalers for use along the Pacific coast.

During the following summer, small boats from Buhne’s Mary Anne harpooned several humpback whales, which were tried out at facilities on Humboldt Point. One of them yielded twenty-eight barrels of oil, and others possibly more. By 1863, crews from the Mary Anne had killed a total of 114 whales. This was not serious whaling; the “shore-whalers” fished by day and spent their nights at home. The pioneer lumberman James Ryan tumed to whaling part-time when his main business slumped.

During this period. New England whalers—the big boys in the business—resumed operations in California (they had shunned it during the Gold Rush because crewmen often jumped ship to work in the gold fields), and whaling communities were springing up all along the California coast, from Crescent City to Mexico. Whaling ships crowded every inviting cove and estuary until coal and petroleum products killed the demand for whale oil in the marketplace. But by then, California’s whale populations had already been seriously depleted; only a few whales were left by 1875.

Humboldt’s shore-whaling industry of the 1800s was shortlived. Except for an 1861 report that the Crescent City Whaling Company had moved its operation to Trinidad (where it did poorly), the whaling industry faded from the news. In subsequent years, dead whales that washed ashore merited passing notice, but the saga of the early Humboldt whaling industry seems to have been wrapped up with this whimsical item in the January 23, 1875, issue of the Times: “The theory has been started that since the usefulness of whales has largely diminished through the discovery of mineral oils for illuminating purposes, the animal might be domesticated and employed for towing ships.”

Sharks

Shark fishing in Humboldt Bay presents a similar picture of overfishing and loss of market. From 1855 into the 1860s, shovel-nosed sharks were fished extensively for the oil found in their liver, but then they too dropped from the news, except for scary reports of fishermen who suddenly met sharks unexpectedly, and brief items about large dead ones that washed ashore.

Sharks, like the whales, were found in immense numbers; one early report tells how men working on a floating pile driver clubbed thirteen in a half-hour period, which yielded twenty-six gallons of “clear, beautiful oil.” In 1857 some fifteen or twenty small, flat-bottomed boats hunted sharks on the mudflats. Each craft held two men, one to handle the boat, the other the harpoon. The technique was simple; during ebb tides the sharks moved leisurely from one channel to another, exposing their fins as they crossed shallow water. They paid no attention to fishermen pursuing them until the harpoon struck; then they went wild, thrashing about, charging the boat, snapping furiously at anything in their way.

Other Humboldt Bay shark fishermen used hooks and line in deeper channels at high tide, chumming and baiting their hooks with seal meat, which attracted sharks from great distances; the fish would follow the scent near the surface, then dive for the bait on the bottom.

Shark fishing was dangerous work, and more than one report told of men’s hands and arms being mangled. In 1877, well past the heyday of Humboldt’s shark industry, a flounder fisherman drawing in bis line suddenly was confronted by a shark with huge jaws and a terrifying double row of teeth. The shark grabbed his bait, and although the intrepid fisherman managed to grab the beast by the tail and dispatch it with a club, he walked around for some time afterward with one arm in a sling.

These sharks were not small; typical length ranged from four to nine feet. Among six displayed in early May, 1858, near the railroad depot, two were 10 feet long and weighed 300 pounds apiece. Offshore sharks were even larger: a twenty-one-foot bone shark weighing an estimated 3,000 pounds was taken in Crescent City harbor in 1855; in 1873, a thirty-seven-footer-eight feet thick-presumed to have succumbed after “an unpleasantness with his natural enemy, the whale,” washed ashore near the Humboldt lighthouse.

Flounders

Although not as exciting as whales and sharks, flounders were a notable Humboldt export during the latter half of the 1870s through the 1880s. The fish first made news in 1874, when several hundred of them-weighing up to ten pounds apiece-were shipped to the San Francisco market, where they sold for thirty to thirty-five cents a pound. Soon, many hookand-line fishermen began fishing incoming tides, enticing the flat, cross-eyed fish off the bottom by the thousands. By 1876 the Times reported that flounder fishing was becoming “quite an industry here.” More than 100 men were fishing commercially; in February, 1876, the steamers Pelican and Humboldt shipped out eight tons, and similar shipments were reported in subsequent years. In the 1876-77 season (November-Febmary) the amount of fish shipped increased two-thirds over the previous year, but with the vagaries of the market, the income from these shipments increased by only 40 percent.

Although great quantities of founders remained in the bay, and many were still shipped as late as 1887, the Humboldt fishermen lost out to San Francisco Bay Area fishermen in the market, as suggested by this Times item of January 1888: “The fish that went to San Francisco last steamer brought eight cents per pound for salmon, and two and one-half cents per pound for flounder, and during the bad weather last month, when the fishing boats could not fish in San Francisco Bay, or go outside the bay, flounders brought eight cents per pound.”

Ultimately, Humboldt flounders overwhelmed the market. The profit margin-which during the 1870s had been twelve or more cents per pound-dropped to the point where little money was to be made in the flounder industry.

And Funny Fish…

Among the various species of fish commonly found in Humboldt County, unusual specimens resembling ones found in other parts of the country occasionally showed up in fishermen’s catches. When newsmen reported the strange fish, they often included the adjective genuine before the name, imparting a sense of awe that such fish were actually found in Humboldt waters. Thus, terms such as “genuine speckled trout,” “genuine downeast cod,” and “genuine black bass” commonly appeared in fishing reports. Other catches of unfamiliar fish-sometimes fish that local experts could not identify were described in painstaking detail.

Here are several such reports, gleaned from the Humboldt Times by Duane Wainwright:

December 19, 1874. Devil Fish. “One of that somewhat rare, at least in these waters, and ungainly looking aquatic animals was captured on the bay shore near Pearson’s Foundry yesterday. The arms, feet or whatever else they may be called, measured some eight feet from tip to tip. An accurate and intelligible description of this curious specimen is beyond our power….”

December 7, 1878. Sun Fish. “Mr. W. Morrill, of thiscity, has a genuine sunfish, which was cast ashore on the beach and captured a short time since. It fills the description given of that fish to a nicety, being nearly circular in form, shining surface and soft finned-two very small in a line with, and about four or five inches back of the eyes; and two long and narrow near the tail-one above and the other below….”

December 27, 1879. A Queer Fish. “Somebody reports…the finding of a queer fish in the Klamath River which is called the ‘candle fish.’ It is only about eight inches long when grown, is impregnated with oil throughout, and when thoroughly dried can be lighted at either end and will burn like a candle and give an excellent light. It also makes palatable food.”

July 11, 1885. Unknown. “At the fish market on H Street, yesterday afternoon, there was a fish that none of the fishermen could name. Even Geo. Heney, who is familiar with every ‘monster of the deep,’ from shrimp to sperm whale, gave it up. The fish resembles in shape a shark, and is about one foot in length. It is of a dark color with small white spots. The head resembles an animal’s more than that of a fish, and has a set of teeth like a weasel. It has been preserved in alcohol.”

April 17, 1890. A New Edible Fish. “The USS Albatross, while making soundings from Point Reyes to Point Arena, found a new fish, unknown to the markets, in deep sea soundings from 100 to 400 fathoms. It has been named “deep sea sole,” and it belongs to the family of flounders. It has been pronounced a very delicate, fine-flavored fish.” 

A Rare Fish “Ed Nichols, of Arcata, sent to the Times yesterday a fish that struck our local anglers dumb with amazement. It is about four feet long, the head being nearly round and armed with a mouth full of long fang-like teeth. The body is long and tapering. Altogether the thing is a regular piscatorial nightmare….”

And from the Femdale Enterprise on November 26, 1891: A Curious Fish. “Mr. Fred Kendall, of the Eel River cannery, sent us the other day a very curious looking fish, evidently a stranger in Eel River waters. It is about eighteen inches in thickness. It has a big hump on its back, five under fins and a partial hawk-bill.”

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The story above was originally printed in the Summer 1996 issue of the Humboldt Historian, a journal of the Humboldt County Historical Society. It is reprinted here with permission. The Humboldt County Historical Society is a nonprofit organization devoted to archiving, preserving and sharing Humboldt County’s rich history. You can become a member and receive a year’s worth of new issues of The Humboldt Historian at this link.