CREEK CENSUS ON THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI RIVER 



Introduction 



History. The Upper Mississippi River Conserva- 

 tion Committee was organized in 1943, for the 

 purpose of making a study of the fish and fishery 

 of the Upper Mississippi River, where it forms 

 a common boundary between the states of Minne- 

 sota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri. 

 Extensive and intensive investigations were con- 

 ducted from 1944 to 1949 and on a reduced scale 

 since 1950, under the direction of a Technical 

 Committee for Fish. The creel census operations 

 herein reported were carried out under the 

 auspices of this technical committee, and the 

 supervision of the writer . 



A creel census was conducted on the Up- 

 per Mississippi River in the area between Red 

 Wing, Minnesota, and Dubuque, Iowa, during the 

 summer of 1944, the winter of 1944-45, the sum- 

 mer of 1945, and the winter of 1945-46. 



Fishery investigators familiar with the 

 literature on the subject of creel census are a- 

 ware of both the advantages and shortcomings of 

 this method of estimating a sport fish harvest. 

 The technique can be said to be almost standard- 

 ized. It is one of the few reliable methods of 

 assaying a sport fish harvest, and in some in- 

 stances it seems to be the only feasible approach. 

 Even so, it is at best a cumbersome procedure, 

 and an expensive one . 



In the present instance, the technical 

 committee deemed the operation a justifiable one. 

 The need was great for concrete knowledge of the 

 game fish yield of the Upper Mississippi River. 

 It was known that this water furnished fishing 

 sport to thousands of people, even in competition 

 with the renowned fishing in lakes and trout 

 streams in the area. But only a general notion 

 was available of the size of the fishery. 



Accordingly, a creel census was decided 

 upon, set up, and carried out as hereinafter 

 described. The design was flexible, since the 

 organization of the Mississippi River Survey 

 necessitated the making of field activity plans 

 for a season at a time. Nevertheless, since four 



successive fishing seasons (two winter seasons 

 and two summer seasons) were involved, the re- 

 sults obtained lend themselves handily to 

 integration, and permit making certain compari- 

 sons of the four seasons. 



The desirability of a continuation or 

 repetition of the creel census work, in the years 

 after 1946, was readily apparent; but the urgency 

 of other projects of general fishery investigation 

 necessitated the suspension of extensive creel 

 census work.i' Therefore, it is only in a rough 

 manner that comparisons of fishing harvest 

 throughout a period of several years can be made . 

 Casual observation indicated that the average fish- 

 ing success was greater in the years 1948 to 1950 

 than it was in the period 1944 to 1946, when the 

 creel census here reported was performed. The 

 number of fishermen utilizing the river increased 

 markedly, no doubt partly on account of the better 

 fishing. Therefore, the total game fish harvest 

 increased in a sort of geometric proportion. It 

 is difficult to estimate long-range trends. 



In making any comparisons of fishing suc- 

 cess factors between the Upper Mississippi River 

 and other fishing areas, it must be remembered 

 that the figures here presented for the Mississippi 

 River may or may not represent averages over a 

 long period of time . Apparently they do not, but 

 instead they show fishing at low ebb. Generally 

 it is futile to compare one fishing area with an- 

 other in terms of average fishing success, even 

 though these figures may have been faithfully 

 recorded. Modifying factors are many. The 

 kinds of fish entering the respective catches, the 

 sizes and fighting qualities of the fish, the in- 

 dividual preferences of the fishermen, and the 

 day-to-day and season -to -season changes in fish- 

 ing success, all make it difficult to say 

 categorically that one water is a better place to 

 fish than another. For this reason a complete 



1/ In the years since 1950, a considerable 

 amount of creel census work has been done, 

 mostly in local areas, on the Upper Mississippi 

 River, by the Upper Mississippi River Commit- 

 tee or its member state agencies. Some of this 

 work has been reported in the annual proceedings 

 of the Committee; part of it is yet to be reported. 



