manuscript. Dr. Van Oosten also supplied in- 

 formation on problems of legislation and law 

 enforcement in the early 1930's. The figures 

 were prepared by William L . Cristanelli . 



Materials and methods 



Records of chub production by state 

 through 1940 have been adapted from Gallagher 

 and Van Oosten (1943). Statistics on production 

 after 1940 were compiled in the Ann Arbor 

 offices of the Fish and Wildlife Service (Michi- 

 gan in all years; Indiana and Illinois after 1949; 

 Wisconsin in 1953) or supplied by State conserva- 

 tion agencies (Indiana and Illinois through 1949; 

 Wisconsin through 1952). 



All compilations of production records 

 and estimates of abundance (availability) and 

 fishing pressure in statistical districts were 

 made in Ann Arbor from monthly fishing reports 

 submitted to the states by every licensed com- 

 mercial fisherman and later turned over to the 

 Service for analysis. Each of these reports 

 carries a daily record of the kind and amount of 

 gear lifted and of the catch in pounds of each 

 species (group of species for chubs) . Methods 

 employed for the analysis of commercial fishery 

 statistics of the Great Lakes have been outlined 

 in earlier papers by Hile (1937), Hile and Jobes 

 (1941), and Van Oosten, Hile, and Jobes (1946) . 

 The actual procedure is simpler with chub 

 statistics than for species in which me catch is 

 taken by rwo or more important gears. Prac- 

 tically all chubs are caught in small-mesh gill 

 nets (2-1/4 to 2-7/8 inches—legal minimum and 

 maximum have varied with state and year) . In- 

 dices of abundance accordingly have been comput- 

 ed from fluctuations in the catch per unit effort 

 of that gear alone . Fishing intensity has varied 

 almost exactly according to the amount of small- 

 mesh gill nets lifted that contained chubs, since 

 only small adjustments were needed to correct 

 for production by other gears . 



Production of chubs in Lake Michigan 

 by state, 1890-1953 



Production in 1890-1925. --As was stated 

 in the introductory section, records of chub pro- 

 duction in Lake Michigan prior to 1926 are 

 generally unsatisfactory. No statistics are 



available at all for Illinois and Indiana, and 

 many of the records for Michigan and Wisconsin 

 are incomplete or include fish for which the 

 species identification may be questioned. The 

 statistics for 1890-1925 (table 1) do have some 

 value, nevertheless, in providing minimal 

 estimates of take. Questions concerning these 

 data are best handled by quoting directly from 

 Gallagher and Van Oosten (1943). In the follow- 

 ing paragraphs, "U. S. Fisheries" refers to 

 statistical reports of the Fish Commission and 

 the Bureau of Fisheries, and "U. S. Census" to 

 reports of the Bureau of the Census . 



"In Lake Michigan the larger 

 chubs, that is, longjaws and black- 

 fins, were included with whitefish 

 in U . S . Fisheries reports for 1879, 

 1885, 1890, and 1893. In these same 

 years the smaller species of chubs 

 probably were included with lake 

 herring in ail lakes . It may be 

 assumed, however, that the smaller 

 chubs did not contribute greatly to 

 the reported yield of lake herring 

 in the earlier years since the really 

 intensive exploitation of the small 

 chubs got under way in the late 

 1920' s particularly after the collapse 

 of the cisco fishery of Lake Erie in 

 1925. 



"After 1890 the treatment of 

 the statistics for chubs and lake 

 herring in U. S. Fisheries varied 

 widely. Part of the chubs were 

 listed in some years as blackfins 

 (or bluefins), longjaws, or longjaws 

 and blackfins combined, but until 

 the category "chubs" was introduced 

 in 1926 all the smaller varieties 

 presumably were grouped with lake 

 herring. In 1917, 1922, and 1925 

 all chubs and lake herring were 

 combined as "ciscoes ." .... 



"The U. S. Census data for 

 1889 combined all chubs and the 

 Menominee whitefish with lake 

 herring. The 1908 statistics in- 

 cluded records for bluefins or 

 blackfins: and longjaws. The 



