Table 1 . --Licensed nets and catch of the commercial fishery 



(full-time and part-time fishermen combined) for 1954 



Fishing area and gear 



Number of 

 licensed 

 nets 



Number 

 of shad 

 caught 



Coastal area : 



Coastal drift nets 

 Inland area: 



Kings Ferry set nets 

 Upper set nets 

 Upper drift nets 



Total 



15 



40 



182 



21 



258 



9,490 



4,359 

 4,341 

 1,906 



20,096 



We fished for tagging specimens almost 

 every day throughout the season, because it 

 was difficult to obtain as many live shad as de- 

 sired. A total of 235 shad were tagged through- 

 out the fishing season. During this same period 

 133 tags were recaptured by the commercial 

 fishery. The calculated commercial -fishing 

 rate in 1954 was 133/235 or 56.6 percent. 



In a study of the Umpqua River in Oregon, 

 Gharrett (1950) found that Petersen -type tags 

 caused fish to become entangled in the gear, 

 thus malcing it selective for tagged fish. Should 

 the tags used in this study have been selective 

 the proportion of tagged fish in the catch of the 

 coastal area would have been greater than that 

 of the inland area. To determine whether this 

 occurred, the tag-recovery data from the 

 coastal and inland areas were subjected to a 

 chi- square test: 



The analysis shows that there was no sig- 

 nificant difference in the proportion of tagged 

 to untagged fish in the catch of the coastal 

 fishery compared with that of the inland fish- 

 ery. Thus no evidence of selectivity was found 

 in this study. 



The following formula was used to esti- 

 mate the size of the 1954 Ogeechee River shad 

 run: 



s 

 where 



t - number of tagged shad (235) 



n ; number subsequently sampled 

 (20,096) 



s r number of tagged shad in sample 

 (133) 



y\ 



N - estimate of total number of shad 



in population 



The estimated population (N) = 35,508 shad. 

 Confidence limits were determined for this 

 estimate using a method given by Chapman 

 (1948). With 95 -percent confidence, the true 

 population was found to range between 30,000 

 and 42,000 shad. 



