402 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Sturgeon are geuerally distributed in this lake, but are nowhere 

 abundant. They are taken only in pound nets in the inshore waters, 

 and much more than half the yield is obtained in Saginaw Bay. The 

 aggregate catch in the year covered by the inquiry was greater than 

 in 1885; the north shore, however, showed a nmrkedly decreased catch, 

 while in Saginaw Bay tliere was an increased production. 



Black bass, perch, catfish, and suckers are noteworthy elements in 

 the fisheries of this lake only in Saginaw Bay and River, where they 

 are caught with poi:nd nets and fyke nets. The most important of these 

 are perch and ^suckers. 



On the north shore of this lake, including the counties of Chippewa 

 and Mackinac, whitefish and trout are the most abundant commercial 

 fishes; sturgeon, lake herring, pike, and pike perch are also taken, but 

 in relatively small quantities. In the fisheries centering at Detour 

 prosecuted between the north shore of Drummond Island and Albany 

 Island, and 7 miles west of Detour Light, at the entrance of Detour 

 Passage, whitefish were found to be much more abundant than in the 

 preceding few years, while trout and pil^e perch were j^early growing 

 scarcer, Mr. Benjamin Butterfield, who has fished in this locality for 

 the past thirty-six years, stated to an agent of the Commission that at 

 times in 1890 and 1891 he took as many as 6,000 pounds of whitefish 

 from one small pound at one night's fishing, this being a great many 

 more fish than he and other fishermen were ever able previously to 

 catch in the same time and with the same apparatus during his long 

 experience. Mr. Butterfield attributes the growing increase in white- 

 fish almost entirely to artificial propagation, and remarks that previous 

 to the planting in this locality of whitefish fry from the Alpena station 

 whitefish were becoming very scarce and small fish were seldom caught. 

 In 1890, however, a large part of the yield consisted of fish averaging 

 a little more than 1 pound in weight, and the following year their aver- 

 age weight was 1| pounds, Mr, Thomas Sims, another experienced 

 fisherman of Detour, agreed with Mr. Butterfield in the foregoing 

 statements, and said that, if the mesh in the pound nets were as small 

 as in former years, on a number of occasions his boat, which has a 

 capacity of 4 or 5 tons, would not have carried the whitefish caught in 

 one small pound net in the course of one night. 



Along the shore between St. Ignace and Detour, an increase in the 

 abundance of whitefish as compared with a number of preceding years 

 was reported, the increase being especially marked in Les Cheneanx and 

 Prentice Bay. Trout and some other fish appear to be diminishinf,-- 

 in number. One reason assigned bj^ Mr. Isaac Goudreau, Mr. Charles 

 Gronden, and other prominent fishermen for the increase of whitefish 

 in the inshore waters and among the islands is that the fish have been 

 driven from their regular resorts in the lake by the large accumulation 

 on the favorite grounds of sawdust and other refuse from a mill at St, 

 Ignace. The bottom, for a mile from the shore at St. Ignace, was said 



