HOME POOLS AND HOMING BEHAVIOR 



OF SMALLMOUTH BLACK BASS IN JORDAN CREEK 



R. WELDON LARIMORE, Assistant Aquatic Biologist 

 NATURAL HISTORY SURVEY DIVISION 



The possibility that some fresh-water fish es- 

 tablish home territories, definite water areas in 

 which they spend much or most of their lives, is 

 of considerable biological interest, not only be- 

 cause it presents a fascinating phase of animal be- 

 havior but also because it has implications in fish 

 management. 



Although Thompson (1933) found evidence to in- 

 dicate randomness of movement among several 

 species of fish in Illinois rivers and streams in a 

 period of drought years, other investigators have 

 detected among the species they studied at least 

 temporary attachment to particular places. Shetter 

 (1937), working with a cold-water species, brook 

 trout in Michigan, found that at least one-third of 

 the over-the-winter recoveries of these fish were 

 individuals that, following the spawning run, had 

 returned to the places where they were tagged the 

 previous year. After following the movements of 

 brown trout in a New York creek, Schuck (1945) 

 stated that the larger-sized trout tended to remain 

 in the location of their initial preference, leaving 

 it to spawn upstream, but returning some time 

 later. Although there is little evidence that warm- 

 water species will return to a home territory after 

 having left it, Scott (1949) found that rock bass in 

 an Indiana stream tended to remain in a very limited 

 area. Gerking (1950) showed that certain warm- 

 water fish in an Indiana stream occupied "homes' 

 during the summer months. He found that long- 

 ear sunfish, green sunfish, and rock bass were 

 more sedentary than smallmouths, spotted bass, 

 or suckers. 



In studying the movements of fish in relation to 

 brush shelters, Rodeheffer (1941) considered the 

 tendency of transferred fish to return to the place 

 of their original capture. He moved 767 marked 

 fish a straight-line distance of 0.6 mile across a 

 bay of Douglas Lake, Michigan. Forty-two of these 

 fish were later retaken, 37 at the place of orig- 

 inal capture. Thirty of the total number of fish 

 returning to the area of original capture were rock 

 bass. Two of 20 smallmouths moved were re- 

 captured, 1 at the site of original capture. 

 Rodeheffer did not regard the results of this exper- 

 iment as evidence of homing. He suggested that 

 the recaptures made at other points in the lake 



indicated that the transferred fish moved around 

 somewhat at random. 



The tendency for a fish to remain in a partic- 

 ular territory, or return to it after being away, 

 appears to be intimately related to seasonal move- 

 ments, maintenance of territories, temporary 

 wandering, and general requirements of the fish. 

 These phenomena were not investigated in the 

 present study because of its necessarily limited 

 scope. 



With the exception of a few minor observations 

 on longear sunfish, the investigation reported here 

 is purposefully restricted to illustrating the attach- 

 ment of the smallmouth black bass, Micropterus 

 dolomieu Lacepede, to home pools in Jordan Creek. 



Evidence of Kome Pools in Jordan Creek 



Jordan Creek is located near Fairmount, 

 Vermilion County, in east-central Illinois. This 

 small stream, figs. 1 and 2, a tributary of the Salt 

 Fork of the Vermilion River, is composed of short, 

 hard-bottomed pools and shallow riffles, and most 

 of it varies from 15 to 35 feet in width. Between 

 July 25 and September 5, 1950, an initial census 

 was made of the fish population in the lower 4 miles 

 of the creek, which included all of its waters suit- 

 able for game fishes. Fish were collected with the 

 aid of a 21-foot electric seine, fig. 2, similar to 

 the one described by Funk (1949); the seine oper- 

 ated off a 115-volt, alternating current generator. 

 Consecutive collections were taken at intervals 

 upstream from the mouth of the creek. 



As the fish were collected, the game and pan 

 species were marked by fin-clipping to associate 

 them with the 15 divisions into which the stream 

 was marked off for study. These divisions, which 

 varied in length from 0.11 to 0.42 mile, were 

 established with due consideration for the natural 

 divisions between pools. After the game and pan 

 fishes had recovered from the effects of the 

 electric current, they were released in the pools 

 from which they had been taken. 



Many of these divisions of the stream were 

 reworked after the preliminary census. The game 

 and pan fishes taken in the repeat censuses were 



