Out of Bait

Tucked away in timbered, fish-oil-soaked sheds on Seattle's waterfront is a super hush-hush business : salmon egg canning. Though even Seattleites know little about it, this small-fry business is of strategic importance to fishermen everywhere.

Thousands of trout fishermen west of the Mississippi use the pink-and-orange-dyed skeins of salmon eggs for bait (TIME, Jan. 31). Last week, this little business was in trouble. Reason : WPB had cut off its supply of glass containers.

For the nonce, the six ruggedly individualistic canners had got together to fight the ban. They were led by one of the big gest of them, a squat, merry ex-fishmonger named Pete Sellen (creator of the famed "Pete's trout-ticklers"). Back in 1917, Pete Sellen decided that salmon eggs, which were thrown away by fishermen, had their use. After experimenting with more than 400 solutions, he evolved a secret process of dyeing and preserving them. His brother, who had netted $16,000 cutting the cheeks off waste halibut heads and selling them for 10-c- apiece, financed him. The industry grew by a simple process. Employes of Sellen and another pioneer, Seattle's Neptune Fish Products Co. (Bonn's salmon eggs), learned the processing secret, then quit to go into business for themselves. When this happened, Pete Sellen simply developed a new and better process.

Last year he and Neptune Products did the bulk of the canning business, upped 30% by big orders from soldiers & sailors taking up fishing all over the world. In all, the six canners sold 5,000,000 jars, grossed $350,000. This year, they expected to jump production still higher, and have already salted away $50,000 worth of salmon eggs for canning. But unless WPB relents, the industry will have to shut up shop March 1. By the end of summer, the supply of canned eggs on hand will be exhausted. Trout fishers who have used salmon eggs from Alaska to Scotland will have to go back to fly casting, or give up.

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