The middle section, v/hich included 3 miles of the main river and 

 Beaver Creek, was the most heavily fished portion of the river, probably 

 because it iTas readily accessible by a good forest road along its whole 

 length. 



Pishing in the lower section of the river was relatively light in 

 spite of a fairly high average rate of catch (table 2), Again^ this probably 

 was because of poor access; generally speaking the area was accessible at 

 only isolated points over rather poor ranch roads. The importance of acces- 

 sibility is borne out when it is realized that about 54 percent (695) of 

 the estimated 1,290 fisherman -days expended on this section were spent in 

 the first 3 miles (fig. 2), immediately below Diversion Dam where the ap- 

 proach road from Augusta came within a few hundred yards of the river. 



Gibson Reservoir, which \vas 13 times larger than Diversion Reservoirj 

 sustained a fishing pressure of only about one-third that at the latter 

 impoundment. The greater use of Diversion Reservoir probably can be at- 

 tributed principally to better access, although other factors j such as the 

 presence of established picnic sites and greater safety, may have contrib- 

 uted to it, A good road led to and along one side of Dit/ersion Reservoir, 

 while Gibson Reservoir could be reached by car at one point only, and then 

 only over an extremely rough and rocky road. Access to much of Gibson 

 Reservoir vra.s only by boat, on foot, or on horseback. 



Except for minor variations due to differences in the rate of catch, 

 the composition of the catch, and the average vreight of the various species 

 taken, differences in yield from unit to unit seemed to be closely tied to 

 access. 



Essentially all of the fish taken from the North Fork Sun River and the 

 tT^7o onstream reservoirs were game fish and included rainbow, cutthroat, 

 hybrid (rainbow x cutthroat) V and brook trout, grayling, and whitefish. 

 Over 90 percent of the catch consisted of trout. Details of the composition 

 of the catch are shorm in table 3, 



The average Vtreights of the various species of fish caught are shov/n 

 in table 4, Admittedly, some of the samples are too small to be statis- 

 tically reliable; nevertheless, it is believed that the samples vrere 



4/ Specimens considered by crev; members to be hybrids or integrades 

 between rainbov; and cutthroat trout were recorded, but for the purpose of 

 this report, all such specimens have been considered as rainbows and con- 

 sequently are not shown in table 3 (composition of catch) or table 4 

 (average weights). 



18 



