564 U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



LAKE TROUT 



Since 1885 Lake Michigan has produced more trout than all the 

 other Great Lakes together. Trout support the fisheries with 

 large-meshed gill nets and are still caught out of almost all ports, but 

 the principal catches are made in the northern end of the lake around 

 the islands and on the reefs, on the reefs off the Wisconsin shore, and 

 in the southern basin. The southern trout, which are taken chiefly 

 by Milwaukee, Racine, and Grand Haven tugs, live and spawn on 

 clay at depths of 40 to 60 fathoms. The northern trout are shoal 

 forms and spawn off the shores on rock bottom. There are no 

 deep-water trout known in the north. The principal mode of cap- 

 ture is by means of gill nets, though hooks are used out of almost 

 every port, but most commonly on the Wisconsin shore. 



Trout were little esteemed as long as whitefish were plentiful, and 

 relatively few were caught. In 1890, however, the catch of trout was 

 greater than that of any other species, but since then it has been 

 exceeded in abundance by herring and chubs in every census except 

 that of 1922. The species is apparently maintaining itself and is in 

 no danger of extermination, though it is by no means as abundant as 

 formerly. It is only nominally protected by a closed season, since 

 both Wisconsin and Michigan, within the jurisdiction of which 

 States the spawning grounds he, permit fishing if the spawn be saved. 

 Trout are extensively propagated by both the Federal and State 

 Governments. 



CHUBS 



In all Federal statistics the ''chubs" have been grouped with the 

 lake herring — a fish by no means equal to them in value or importance 

 except in Lake Erie — under the name " cisco," and since little has been 

 published pertaining to these fish, a short general account may be of 

 service to those who may wish to understand the general scope of the 

 fisheries. 



There are in Lake Michigan sev^n species of deep-water herring, 

 three of them until recently unknown to science, which are known to 

 the trade and to the majority of the Lake Michigan fishermen as 

 "chubs." The fishermen also call them "longjaws," ''bluefins" 

 (abbreviated to "jaws" and "fins"), "mooneyes," and "kiyis". 

 All these names are used locally in varying senses and are not applied 

 to the same fish by fishermen in different parts of the lake, but 

 wherever any of these colloquial names are current any one of them 

 may be used to designate a catch containing the seven species. All 

 seven are fat, herringUke fish. They differ from one another in their 

 choice of habitat, but all inhabit the deeper waters of the lake. Each 

 ranges during the year over a rather broad, vertical zone, and the 

 habitat zones of all the species overlap more or less at all times, so 

 that in most large catches of chubs, at least, a few individuals of all 

 seven species are taken, except when the nets are set on the spawning 

 grounds of any one of the species, and in that case only the spawning 

 species is taken. Usually, however, one or two species constitute the 

 bulk of any large catch. The proportion of the various species varies 

 at the different ports and also with the season at the same port. 



Chubs are caught almost solely in gill nets, which in the waters of 

 the State of Michigan are of 2^-inch mesh and in the waters of other 

 States are of 2i/^-inch mesh. The chub nets are fished on the bottom 



