In the summer census of 1945 and the 2 

 winter censuses, help was obtained from many 

 boat liveries and resorts. Some of these were: 

 Wines' Resort at Harpers Ferry;. Camp Lacupolis; 

 Bass Camp; MerricK State Park; Kenny's Boat 

 Livery at Guttenberg; Clements' Barge at Genoa; 

 and many others. Valuable publicity was given 

 to the proiect by the various newspapers in the 

 river towns . 



The men employed as creel census field 

 men deserve special mention. From first to 

 last, these men did a thorough and conscientious 

 job of conducting the census . They worked 

 through irregular hours, without respect of 

 holidays, and in all extremes of weather. En- 

 gaged in one or more of the 4 separate projects 

 were: Vilas D. Balk, Harold E. Beck, I. H. 

 Boomer, Leonard Byer, Harold Elser, Laurence 

 Hiner, Ralph Hunt, E B. Kolcinski, Edwin C. 

 Larson, Paul McLaughlin, Walter Myhrom, 

 Robert Sharp, William Sadewasser, and Lloyd 

 Wyman . 



Much aid in working out tabulation pro- 

 cedures was given by the personnel of Interna- 

 tional Business Machines Corporation, 

 particularly by W. G. Ekman of Minneapolis, 

 and P.J. Spinnler of Milwaukee . 



Katherine Roeder and Bettie Satek assist- 

 ed with the computing and tabulating of data; the 

 drafting was done by Orvie Wetzel, Jr . ; and 

 stenographic work by Drusilla Linnell . 



Description of the Upper 

 Mississippi River 



General topography. The term "Upper Missis- 

 sippi River", as used by the Upper Mississippi 

 River Conservation Committee, refers to that 

 part of the Mississippi River where it forms a 

 common boundary between the states of Minne- 

 sota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri; 

 i.e., the stretch of the river between the mouth 

 of the St . Croix River and the mouth of the Ohio 

 River. This is a distance of 810 river miles. 

 The portion of the Upper Mississippi River which 

 is dealt with in this report is the stretch between 

 the Red Wing Dam and Dubuque, Iowa, a river 

 distance of some 225 miles . 



Throughout most of this area, the river 

 valley is bordered by abrupt rocky bluffs. The 

 stream is strongly attenuated and there are 

 numerous sloughs and side channels. There 

 are many so-called lakes which are backwaters 

 usually broadly connected with the river. The 

 entire river valley varies from 2 to 10 miles in 

 width, the total width of the water surface (main 

 channel plus subsidiary channels) runs from 1 

 to 4 miles. 



The gradient is small, the total drop in 

 the 225 miles being only 83 feet. The mean dis- 

 charge at Red Wing is about 2500 c.f.s., and at 

 Dubuque about 4500 c.f.s., there being several 

 good-sized tributaries between. The river dis- 

 charge, and correspondingly the water level, 

 varies considerably througjiout the year. The 

 usual high -water period is in the spring and 

 early summer, with the water level ordinarily 

 being low and stable throughout the late summer, 

 fall, and winter. Because of the small amount 

 of fall in the land, changes in the water level 

 strongly alter the physical characteristics of the 

 sloughs and backwaters . Any given fishing site, 

 therefore, is far from a uniform piece of water 

 the year around. 



The fishing activity is well localized at 

 certain sites and many other stretches of water 

 are scarcely utilized for fishing, either because 

 they do not seem to the fishermen to be suitable 

 or because they are difficult of access and are 

 relatively unexplored. Also, simple gregarious- 

 ness tends to concentrate ice fishermen. 



The various topographical types offer a 

 corresponding variety of fishing conditions. 

 These vary from the almost stagnant and usually 

 shallow water of the backwater lakes, to the much 

 deeper and swifter water in the main channel. 

 Water temperatures run about the same course 

 as those in the waters of the general region, 

 except that, throughout the 225 miles of river, 

 the water temperatures at any given time are 

 remarkably uniform . 



Turbidity of the water varies from the 

 reasonably clear water of fall and winter to ex- 

 tremely muddy water during flood stage . Soft 

 bottom with much silt and sand deposition is the 

 rule, even in the larger flowing channels. A 



