November, 1954 
BENNETT: LARGEMOUTH Bass IN Ripce LAKE 
bo 
Ww 
Cn 
Fig. 11—Marking bluegill at Ridge Lake. Each new fish (unmarked) returned to the lake 
after a draining census was marked by the removal of one fin. Most bluegills live only about 
4 to 5 years, and few of them appeared in more than one of the spring censuses after being 
marked. Many bass appeared in several censuses, because their normal life span in Ridge Lake 
is 8 to 10 years. 
was considered sufficient to begin restock- 
ing the lake with the fish held in the 
stilling basin at the base of the surface 
spillway. As the fish selected for the re- 
stocking had not been previously proc- 
essed, a work station was set up on the 
edge of the spillway stilling basin with 
two large stock-watering tanks filled with 
clean water and supplied with aerating 
pumps, fig. 10. A table, measuring boards, 
and weighing scales were set up nearby. 
The fish were moved, 50 to 100 at a 
time, from the stilling or holding basin to 
one of the stock tanks; from this they 
were removed individually and weighed, 
measured, “‘scaled” (8 to 10 scales re- 
moved from side of fish below the dorsal 
fin), fin-clipped (or had previous fin- 
clip recorded), and placed in the second 
stock tank. When this second tank be- 
came crowded, the fish in it were trans- 
ferred quickly to covered tubs on a horse- 
drawn sled, hauled over the dam, and 
replaced in the lake. No fish that appeared 
sluggish or emaciated, or that showed 
evidence of injury from its passage through 
the outlet valve and tunnel, was used in 
the restocking. On no census was there 
any evidence of undue mortality among 
the fish that were returned to the lake. 
Operational mortality was believed to 
have been rather low, because a large 
percentage of the marked bass returned 
to the lake after each census were either 
caught by fishermen or recaptured in sub- 
sequent censuses. 
In the 1943, 1945, and 1947 censuses, 
when 1l-inch-mesh poultry netting was 
used for the temporary fish screen, many 
small fish passed through this screen with 
the water. An estimate was made of the 
number of these fish in 1945 and 1947, 
but not in 1943, when, because a domi- 
nant brood of 5- to 8-inch bass was present, 
the number was probably lowest. 
When the permanent concrete frame 
for fish screens was built below the dam 
in 1948, the removable screens to fit this 
frame were covered with quarter-inch- 
mesh hardware cloth. This small mesh 
was no more satisfactory for gaining an 
accurate count of the small fishes than was 
