American Fisheries Society 201 



Shoals with these two features were at all times preferred 

 by tishes, and those with smooth, unbroken marl bottoms, 

 barren of nearly all vegetation, seemed to be the poorest 

 places for fishes in the lake. Early in April, however, 

 shortly after the ice left, minnows and darters were found 

 quite common on these barren shoals, and at night they 

 appeared well ixDpulated, when perch, in large numbers, 

 could be seen with our searchlight resting here and there 

 on the bottom; and sunfish, catfish, and black bass were 

 often noted. Advantage is taken of these larger fishes in 

 shallow water at night and also of those caring for their 

 nests there, by spearmen, who carry on much of their 

 illegal work in Walnut Lake. That whitefish come to 

 shallow water in spring in this lake was shown by the 

 capture of one weighing 2.25 pounds close to shore in less 

 than a foot of water on the night of April 18th. In its 

 stomach were some 200 midge pupae, which were numerous 

 near the shore at that time, and their immense swarms 

 were present over the adjacent sedge zone. 



In those portions of the rush zone where the bulrushes 

 were fonning thick patches, a number of nests of each of 

 the following fishes were found : black bass, common sunfish, 

 long-eared sunfish {Lepouiis mcgalotis), and blue-spotted 

 sunfish. These nests had been made in each case by the 

 fish sweeping away the marl to form a depression with an 

 area of cleaned rush roots at its bottom. To these roots 

 the eggs were attached. Four rock bass nests were found 

 on a shoal with a rather scant growth of bulrushes. There 

 was no indication of any constructive process in any one of 

 these; the bottom soil appeared entirely undisturbed, the 

 " nest " being simply a protected area of the marl bottom in 

 each case with either young or eggs on it. The latter were 

 found in two instances and were attached to the little stone- 

 wort plants which, as before mentioned, are so generally 

 scattered over the marl-bottom shoals. Bluegills seemed 

 to prefer the deeper parts of shoals for their nests. Many 

 colonies of them were found, and all were in water of about 



