130 American Fisheries Society 



1 cite the case of our local hatchery, the superintendent of 

 which was unable to procure more than one-third of the 

 ordinary quantity of mature pike spawn, due to the complete 

 failure of catches of mature pike for four successive seasons. 

 It is absolutely useless, it appears to me, to expend any 

 money on the gathering and hatching of the spawn and to 

 incur the expense of shipping and liberating the small fry 

 when anyone who so desires may fish whenever or wherever 

 and with any kind of a device he pleases. It seems to me 

 that there ought to be an opportunity for every fish to repro- 

 duce its own kind, either by natural deposit of its spawn or 

 by enabling the fish culturist to obtain the spawn and hatch 

 the same artificially. Any device purposely created for the 

 catching of these small, immature fish, or the use of any 

 kind of a net with meshes insufficiently large to permit the 

 escape of the small, immature fish, should be prohibited. 



The fishing laws placed upon the statute books of the dif- 

 ferent states bear witness that it has been realized that some 

 one must exercise some control over the commercial fish- 

 eries in order that not only the present consumers but those 

 of the future may be protected. Some states have excellent 

 laws, which, if enforced, would in a large measure lessen 

 the waste; but one giving more than cursory attention to 

 the fishing laws realizes that but very few efforts at en- 

 forcement are attempted. This failure to enforce these laws 

 is due presumably to the lack of uniformity in the laws of 

 the different states bordering on the same body of water. 

 One cannot help but admit that it would be a grave injus- 

 tice to the fishermen of Pennsylvania, for instance, to pro- 

 hibit them from using a certain destructive device, when 

 his neighbors in the adjoining state of Ohio are permitted 

 to make use of the same. 



The failures of numerous attempts in the past to have 

 uniformity in the fishing laws in those states and provinces 

 bordering on Lake Erie are proof of the futility of further 

 efforts in that direction. 



