BLACK BASS CULTURE 187 



Like the blackhead minnoAV the goklen shiner has a long breed- 

 ing season, beginning at Fairport in May and continuing until mid- 

 sunnner, and possibly later. The eggs are adhesive and are said to 

 be laid singly on plants but aside from this fact very little is known 

 regarding the spawning habits of the shiner. The only eggs found 

 at Fairport were attached singly to the filaments of mat alga3. 

 Experiments have shown that the fish spawn when 1 year old, but 

 naturally the older fish lay a larger number of eggs than the 

 yearlings. 



The productivity of the golden shiner is illustrated by an experi- 

 ment in pond A 11 which has an area of 0.071 acre. This pond 

 was stocked with 36 adult shiners May 20, 1927. During the fol- 

 lowing summer 15,104 fish of various sizes were removed from the 

 pond. The pond was drained on October 17 and 26 adults, 602 

 large fingerlings, and 2,000 small fingerlings removed. This is a 

 total of 17,706 young shiners, which is at the rate of approximately 

 250,000 per acre. 



The following year pond F 2 (area 0.073 acre) was stocked with 

 34 shinere on May 4. The pond was drained October 13 and yielded 

 2,339 fingerling shiners and 31 adults. The fingerling production 

 was at the rate of approximately 32,000 per acre. With regard to 

 numbers this is a small jdeld compared to the previous experiment, 

 but the fish averaged much larger and the actual production of 

 fish flesh was at the rate of approximately 300 pounds to the acre. 



LARGEMOTJTH BLACK BASS 



The natural habits of the largemouth black bass {Microfterus 

 sahnoides) are such as to make it an ideal pondfish. It is especially 

 w^ell suited to localities where the water is too warm and muddy to 

 provide a suitable environment for smallmouth bass and other game 

 fish that require clearer and cooler water. In addition to its adapta- 

 bility to warm and sluggish waters, it has other very desirable qual- 

 ities which have made this fish very popular. For an account of the 

 life history, habits, and distribution of the black basses the reader 

 is referred to the papers of Reighard (1904), Forbes and Richard- 

 son (1908), and Adams and Hankinson (1928). 



The work at Fairport has differed from most bass cultural work 

 in several very important details: (1) It has aimed at the rearing of 

 bass to fingerling sizes rather than their distribution as fry. The 

 practice of planting bass as fry in streams and lakes w^here preda- 

 cious fish are present is of doubtful value, to say the least. (2) 

 Nursery ponds have been employed ; that is, ponds to which fry are 

 transferred from the brood ponds and where they are reared away 

 from the adults. (3) An attempt has been made to increase bass 

 production by increasing the natural food supply through the use 

 of fertilizers and of forage minnows. (4) We have adopted the 

 policy of rearing our own brood fish. 



The results of this work have shown conclusively that it is practi- 

 cable to rear bass to fingerling size in small hatchery ponds at a 

 reasonable cost. 



In 1928 the Fairport ponds produced a total of 46,392 largemouth 

 fingerlings. The combined area of the ponds devoted to this species 



