Practically all of the winter fishing was 

 done with worms and minnows to the exclusion 

 of all other types of bait. Except as to bait, no 

 other attempt has been made to classify the 

 various techniques of fishing, i.e., as to kind of 

 tackle or the manner of its use. Also, no dis- 

 tinction has been made between shore fishing 

 and fishing from a boat, or between ice fishing 

 and fishing in the open water in the winter (some 

 open water fishing was done, particularly below 

 dams, but it did not amount to a very large per- 

 centage of the whole) . 



In general, worms produced definitely 

 more fish per hour than did minnows. This was 

 true particularly for the winter of 1945-46, the 

 figures for which were influenced greatly by the 

 very large numbers of bluegills caught on worms 

 at Winter Creek. The figures for artificial baits, 

 and natural baits other than worms or minnows, 

 probably are not very reliable since the amount 

 of fishing involved was not large. The figures, 

 such as they are, show that for the summer of 

 1945 these types of bait were not as productive 

 in fish per hour as worms and compared not too 

 favorably with tlie success obtained by using 

 minnows. 



In these comparisons it must be remem- 

 bered that the quality of the catch, both as to 

 species and size, varied greatly with the type of 

 bait used. Worms produced mostly bluegills; 

 the larger fish, such as crappie and walleyes, 

 were caught with minnows . 



Time of day. The influence of the time of day 

 at which the fishing was done, upon the fishing 

 success, is shown in table 20 . There is of 

 necessity some lumping of information because 

 of the form in which the field data were recorded. 

 For instance, if a fishing party fished throughout 

 the entire day or a large part of it, the census 

 card was made to read "morning and afternoon", 

 "afternoon and evening", or "morning, afternoon, 

 and evening", as the case might be. 



With minor disparity, the figures of 

 table 20 show that in both the winter and summer 

 fishing the catch rate was higher in the early and 

 late parts of the day than it was during the mid- 

 day. To some extent, the morning fishing was 

 the best of all. These conclusions agree well 



with the general opinion among fishermen, most 

 of whom have heard, or read, or concluded that 

 fishing slacks off in the middle of the day. 

 Despite this belief, however, the daytime fishing 

 intensity is greater than that in the early morn- 

 ing or in the evening; apparently only the inveter- 

 ate fishermen are willing to start fishing early 

 or stay out late . 



Eschmeyer (1935) found much the same 

 situation. Fishing was best at about daybreak 

 and about dusk, although the heaviest fishing 

 load was in the mid-morning and late afternoon. 

 However, Pelton (1950) reported that in Lake 

 Alma, Ohio, "daytime fishing (8 a .m . to 5 p.m.) 

 was nearly twice as good as night fishing." 



Sex of fishermen. The numbers of male and 

 female fishermen were recorded on the field 

 forms but part of the data cannot be separated. 

 That is, many cards recorded the fishing of a 

 fishing party containing both men and women 

 without any indication as to what part of the catch 

 was caught by the members of either sex. In the 

 summer fishing for 1944, field cards showing 

 men alone averaged 0. 78 fish per hour, while 

 cards with both men and women had an average 

 fishing success of .55 (there are too few cards 

 for women alone to justify computing an average) . 

 In the winter fishing (1944-45), men alone caught 

 . 57 fish per hour, parties composed of both 

 men and women caught 0.38, and women alone 

 caught 0.35. The evidence thus is that the men 

 definitely were better fishermen than the women. 



Water temperature . There is no doubt that 

 water temperature can and often does exert a 

 considerable influence upon the feeding habits of 

 fish and therefore upon their catchability . How- 

 ever, this influence is apt to be modified or 

 obscured by many other factors so that it is not 

 always plainly evident . Furthermore, in attempt- 

 ing to set up any figures which will demonstrate 

 the relationship of water temperature to fishing 

 success, difficulty is experienced in determining 

 just what measurements should be made and what 

 information should be recorded. For instance, 

 it is not always certain at what water depth the 

 temperature measurement should be made, par- 

 ticularly in a water which is sharply stratified 

 thermally, since fish move freely from one depth 

 to another and are caught at various depths. 



37 



