acre of reservoirs and the cost per pound of fish, all of which are in- 

 dicative of the relative worth of the various areas involved. On thi3 

 bas:!s, fisherman expenditures on the Madison River approximate $al2,500 

 annually. Total expenditures per mile of stream or surface acre of 

 reservoir and per pound of fish are shown for the three sections of 

 stream and the two reservoirs in Table 12 



DISCUSSION 



Comparisons of the various units of the Madison River 

 fishery on the basis of total fishing pressure and yield already have 

 been made in this report and considerable variation shown (Tables 6 

 and 7). Variations in the physical and biological nature of the 

 different areas lessen the significance of any comparison on this 

 basis. 



Fishing success, as measured by the rate of catch, offers 

 a somewhat better means for comparison in judging the relative merits 

 of the various areas. While rates of catch also may be affected by 

 many of the same factors that cause variation in the total fisherman- 

 days and yield, these values afford the best common denominator for 

 comparison from the point of view of the angler 



There was considerable variation between the different units 

 of the study even on the basis of fishing success. Fishing success on 

 the two reservoirs was quite similar — Madison Reservoir at 0„32 fish per 

 hour and Hebgen Reservoir at a 30 fish per hourj but that on the river 

 varied from 0„37 to o 82„ Some of this variation may be attributed to 

 the greater or lesser degree of utilization (Table 7) but since some 

 of the more productive areas were fished quite heavily, the higher 

 rates in some sections must be attributed to other factors. It might 

 be assumed that biological and physical conditions in certain sections 

 were such as to cause those sections to be more productive. Unfortu- 

 nately the study was not conducted in such manner as to provide data 

 from which definite conclusions could be drawn. 



A number of creel census studies have been made of other 

 streams and reservoirs throughout the Rocky Mountain region j and, al- 

 though for a variety of reasons, few of these other bodies of water are 

 comparable to the Madison River or Hebgen and Madison Reservoirs, com- 

 parisons on the basis of rate of catch provide a general idea of the 

 relative quality of the fishing in the Madison River . A comparison of 

 rates of catch for streams is shown in Table 13 and. for reservoirs in 

 Table ll». 



In comparing the rates of catch of the streams in the study 

 area with those for other streams (Table 13) it will be noted that, 

 with respect to numbers of fish caught per hour P the rates for all three 

 sections of the Madison River are in the lower half of the other fctudies 



31 



