490 U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



Mammoth Spring (Ark.) Station 

 [Dell Brown, Superintendent] 



The stock of brood smallmouth black bass on hand at the opening of spring 

 was supplemented late in April by the acquisition of 92 adults transferred from 

 Lake Erie waters. The fish began nesting on March 26, and spawning occurred 

 daily for some time thereafter. It was soon discovered, however, that the nests 

 contained very few eggs and that in every instance they were being deserted by 

 the parent fish. The reason for this unnatural action has not been determined, 

 but it is thought to have been caused in part, at least, by blasting operations 

 going on at the time in the vicinity of the station. At the close of the fiscal year 

 only 28,300 fry and fingerling bass had been produced from the entire brood 

 stock of 416 fish. 



Somewhat better results were attained in the work with the largemouth bass, 

 though it was apparent that they, too, were greatly disturbed by the heavy ex- 

 plosions. Many nests were seen in the ponds, but only 20 of them contained live 

 fry. The output from these amounted to 77,135 No. 1 fingerlings. In addition 

 to the work with the black bass, limited numbers of rock bass, bream, catfish, 

 and crappie wei'e produced and distributed. 



Orangeburg (S. C.) Station 



[G. W. N. Brown, Superintendent] 



The nesting of black bass began on February 14, earher than in any previous 

 year in the history of the station, and was prolonged almost to the middle of 

 June. A very unusual occurrence — at least it has never before been noted in 

 connection with the work here — was the breaking up of several schools of young 

 bass before they had attained the advanced fry stage. This is believed to have 

 been due to the severely cold weather which occurred shortly after the eggs 

 hatched, causing the parent fish to abandon the schools. The same thing was 

 observed at other pond stations of the bureau last season. The station's output 

 of bass for the year consisted of 107,500 fry and 265,055 fingerhngs from 1 to 4 

 inches in length. Deliveries were made to api^licants in North Carolina, South 

 Carolina, and Georgia, and the Edisto River at Orangeburg was stocked. In 

 addition to the above, hmited numbers of sunfish, warmouth bass, crappie, and 

 catfish were produced and distributed to applicants. 



San Marcos (Tex.) Station 

 [Mark Rilet, Superintendent] 



Six species of fish were handled at this station, the most important being the 

 black bass. Owing to an inadequate brood stock, both as to number and size, 

 and to the occurrence of high winds during the height of the spring distributing 

 season, making it impossible to capture many of the schools of young fish before 

 they dispersed in the ponds, the output of black bass was below the average. 

 The year's distribution amounted to 224,861 fingerlings ranging in size from No. 

 1 to No. 9. In addition to the station output of pondfishes, considerable numbers 

 of black bass and sunfish were produced in Kerrville, Medina Lake, and New 

 Braunfels, Tex., at which places the bureau is cooperating with the municipal 

 authorities in the conduct of pondfish-cultural work. 



A prolonged drought, the most enduring in the history of the State, caused 

 the evaporation of the water in practically all ponds and tanks in the region, 

 and even some of the larger streams were reduced to mere chains of isolated pools. 

 Taking advantage of the opportunity offered by these conditions, the station seined 

 the stagnant and rapidly disappearing waters and transferred the fish collected 

 therein to running streams, thus accomplishing a larger amount of salvage work 

 than has ever before Iseeu possible in the history of the station. 



Within recent years the distributions of crappie from the San Marcos station 

 have been considerably increased by drawing upon the stock of young crappie 

 produced in privately' owned ponds. These inclosures were originally stocked 

 by the bureau with the understanding that the station would be allowed to draw 

 upon them to a reasonable extent in supplying the public demands for crappie. 

 Because of the drought and the consequent failure of this source of supply,, 

 there was a very limited output of this species during the year. 



