258 
rate of catch from the third day of fishing 
to the end of the week was nearly as poor 
as the average rate for most weekly periods 
through the remainder of the summer. 
This poor rate of catch for the last 3 days 
of the first week followed an accumulation 
of fishing hours over a 2-day period of 
about 25 man-hours per acre. Less than 
10 per cent of the bass available at the 
beginning of the public fishing period had 
been taken by the end of the second day 
and there was still a bass population of at 
least 82 fish per acre. When the lake 
was closed after 11 weeks of fishing, there 
were still about 451 bass available (41 
per acre); the hook-and-line yield repre- 
sented 56.9 per cent of the number of 
fish of 9 inches or more in length that 
Ittinois NATURAL History SurveEY BULLETIN 
Vol. 26, Art. 2 
were available when preseason fishing was 
begun on June 1. 
The apparent drop in rate of catch in 
1949 from preseason fishing to the rate 
of even the first day of public fishing, 
table 15, suggested that bass were rather 
quickly influenced by an acceleration of 
fishing activity. Consequently, fishing data 
were reassembled to show average rates 
of catch (by weight) for half-day fishing 
periods for the first week of fishing dur- 
ing each of the seasons of 1942, 1944, 
1947, and 1949—years in which the fish 
populations were made up entirely or prin- 
cipally of bass. These average rates of 
catch are shown in table 16 and fig. 15. 
The season of 1945 was omitted because 
muddy water early in the first week, 
Table 15.—The 1949 creel at Ridge Lake, with figures arranged to show rapid drop in 
success of angling associated with intensive fishing. Bass listed as available were at least 9 
inches in length. Calculations involving acreage were based on the actual water area of 11 acres. 
AVAILABLE Bass 
CatcH 
Man- Pounds 
Pp = Tie Hours Hours to} of Bass 
On AS ae OF Total |Hours to) Catch1| per 
Fisninc| Total |Per Acre| Number} Weight,} Catch | Pound | Man- 
Pounds |One Bass| of Bass | Hour 
of Fish- 
ing 
Preseason 6/1-14..... 72/5 T0464 95 50 52.49 0.4 0.3 2.96 
First WEEK oF ReEGu- 
LAR SEASON 
Ist day 6/15........ 156.00 996 90 67 78.56 23 2.0 0.50 
2nd day 6/16....... 121.50 929 84 22 22.31 5:5 5.4 0.18 
3rd day 6/17........| 111.25 907 82 8 8.87 | 13.9 12.5 0.08 
4th day 6/18........| 96.50 899 82 10 11.44 9.6 8.4 0.12 
5th day 6/19........] 148.25 889 81 14 19.49 | 10.6 TAG 0.13 
REGULAR SEASON 
Ist week 6/15-19....| 633.50 996 90 121 | 140.67 Lye 4.5 0.22 
2nd week 6/22-26...| 627.50 875 79 95 82.73 6.6 7.6 0.13 
3rd week 6/29-7/4..| 561.00 780 71 77 66.77 7.3 8.4 0.12 
4th week 7/6-10 ...| 357.00 703 64 73 54.04 4.9 6.6 0.15 
5th week 7/13-17...| 391.50 630 57 52 45.52 13 8.6 0.12 
6th week 7/20-24...| 376.25 578 52 25 25.50 | 15.0 14.8 0.07 
7th week 7/27-31...| 317.50 553 50 40 24.54 7.9 12.9 0.08 
8th week 8/3-7..... 263.00 513 47 27 19.28 9.7 13.6 0.07 
9th week 8/10-14...| 154.00 486 44 17 13.85 9.1 i heat 0.09 
10th week 8/17-21...| 139.25 469 43 6 Pa a Me 29.5 0.03 
lith week 8/24-28...| 128.25 463 42 12 10.40 | 10.7 1233 0.08 
Total for preseason and 
PONO ros saa awa tae -— a 595 | 540.51 —_— — = 
Available bass remaining} — 451 41 — — — =e = 
* This number was derived by adding to the 1,027 bass returned to the lake after the 1949 draining census the 19 — 
b Three of these unmarked bass were fish spawned in 1948 that had — 
escaped the 1949 draining census; the others were from the 1949 brood. No allowance was made in this calculation for 
bass of the 1948 brood that had escaped the 1949 draining census and were not caught; for bass of the 1949 brood 
that had grown to catchable size (about 6 inches or more) and were not caught; or for bass later unaccountably lost, — 
unmarked bass caught by fishermen in 1949. 
as through natural mortality. 
