Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa, bordering on 

 the Mississippi River in this area. By contrast, 

 in the summer fishing there was a significant 

 number of addresses given from other states, 

 such as Illinois. 



About 10 percent of the fishermen in the 

 winter of 1944-45 were classed as "local" in re- 

 gard to the place where they were fishing (within 

 walking distance), and another 36 percent came 

 from distances of 1 to 5 miles (table 3). How- 

 ever, many fishermen drove considerable 

 distances to fish. The average (one-way) dis- 

 tance travelled was approximately 11 miles. 

 This means that allowing 2 fishermen per auto- 

 mobile the 7,900 interviewed fishermen drove a 

 total of approximately 85,000 miles. 



Catch composition 



Species composition of all-over catch. Table 4 

 shows the species composition of the entire 

 catch recorded for each of the 4 creel census 

 seasons . As explained in the footnotes to table 4 

 the crappie were not differentiated as to species; 

 the bullheads included 3 separate species; the 

 black bass were not separated as to largemouth 

 and smallmouth; a few yellow bass ( Morone 

 interrupta) were recorded with the white bass; 

 and the "all other" classification included a 

 variety of species . 



The figures given include only legal- 

 sized fish (at the time of this study there were 

 size limits on most of the species of fish) . The 

 fishermen were questioned regarding their catch 

 of under-sized fish; but it is probable that the 

 figures obtained are not reliable, hence no at- 

 tempt has been made to analyze and tabulate 

 them. In general, however, the numbers of 

 undersized fish taken were not particularly 

 large . 



In both the summer and winter fishing 

 the all-over catch was dominated by bluegill and 

 crappie with the various other species following 

 in numbers . Two species of catfish and the 3 

 species of bullheads appeared in substantial 

 numbers in the summer fishing but were not 

 taken in the winter. Likewise, the drum ap- 

 peared only in the summer catch . In the winter 

 of 1944-45 a considerable number of shovelnose 



sturgeon were taken by fishing in the open water 

 below the Dresbach Dam (pool 8). The data of 

 table 4 are recapitulated in table 5 (in a some- 

 what condensed manner), in the form of 

 percentages of the total. The bluegill -crappie 

 combination made up close to or better than 50 

 percent of the total in each of the 4 seasons . 



Composition by seasons, pools, and localities. 

 Table 5 shows some of the contrast between the 

 summer and winter fishing. Whereas in the 

 summer the percentage of sauger was less than 

 that of walleye, and was only a small part of the 

 total catch, in each of the two winters the per- 

 centage of sauger was much larger than that of 

 walleye. Casual observation in the period 1946- 

 50 indicated that the catch of sauger s had in- 

 creased greatly in proportion both to the catch 

 of waUeye and to the total catch, and in both the 

 summer and winter fishing. Possibly a few con- 

 secutive abundant year -classes of sauger entered 

 the fishery in that period. 



The varying proportions of bluegill to 

 crappie (table 5) are perhaps due not so much to 

 a difference between the winter and summer 

 fishing as to the fact that the 4 different censuses 

 were of different territorial extent; some of 

 them included a larger proportion of bluegill - 

 producing water . 



The percentage of the total catch repre- 

 sented by northern pike is a small figure (1 to 

 4 percent). However, considering the size of 

 this species of fish, its importance to the fishery 

 is greater than the figures indicate. Much the 

 same holds true for the black bass catch. Par- 

 ticularly in some localities, catfish and drum 

 are important constituents of the fishery. 



The season -to -season changes in the 

 species makeup of the catch for certain selected 

 parts of the river are shown in tables 6 to 8. 

 Table 6 gives the percentage composition of the 

 catch in pool 8 for the 4 seasons. The 2 sum- 

 mers run fairly well parallel as do the 2 winters. 

 The catch of crappie in proportion to that of blue- 

 gill was somewhat higher in the winter than in 

 the summer; and the combined catch of the two 

 ran higher in percentage in the winter because 

 the winter catch was restricted to fewer kinds of 

 fish. Sauger in proportion to walleye ran higher 



10 



