December, 1958 



Bennett: Aquatic Biology 



171 



(if not named) by E. A. Birge in 

 writing about fish and their food. Birge 

 (1929:194) stated: 



Good fishing for sport calls for the con- 

 tinued presence in a lake of a relatively few 

 large individuals of the desired species, 

 which are to be caught singly. They must 

 be larger than the average adult. They are 

 not caught primarily for food but for sport 

 and as a basis for stories. A dozen half- 

 pound bass are by no means an equivalent to 

 one three-pounder from this point of view. 

 But these large individuals are few in num- 

 ber: they are old and have come to full size 

 very slowly. It is easy to catch them and very 

 hard to replace them in the presence of the 

 vigorous competition for food that goes on 

 in a lake. And as yet little thought and less 

 study have been given to the needs of this 

 specific form of conservation of fish resources. 

 (Italics mine.) 



This statement implies a concept of 

 management for sport <ishing. 



When Carl L. Hubbs described the 

 organization of the Institute for Fisheries 

 Research (Hubbs 1930), fisheries re- 

 searchers in Michigan were working on a 

 state-wide creel census, lake and stream 

 surveys, stream improvement, nursery 

 waters, hsh migration, predators of hsh, 

 fish diseases, and fish growth. 



At about the same time, fisheries re- 

 search at the Illinois Natural History 

 Survey (Wicklift 1933) included studies 

 of fish migration through tagging of fish, 

 ages and growth rates of important fishes, 

 general quantitative determinations of 

 plankton and bottom organisms, a com- 

 parison of fish population densities by 

 means of standardized fishing methods, 

 and the determination of the fish popu- 

 lation of a lake by capture, fin marking, 

 and recapture of adult fish. 



The point at which fish management 

 emerged as a more or less discrete dis- 

 cipline is not easily established. If fish 

 management is assumed to be the art of 

 producing sustained annual crops of wild 

 fish for recreational use (modified from 

 Leopold 1933), agreement as to the time 

 management began is difficult to reach. 



Modern management could hardly 

 have made a beginning until biologists 

 had discovered enough basic information 

 about fishes to be able to discredit the 

 unfounded but strongly held theories 

 relative to the values of stocking, closed 

 seasons, length limits, and creel limits. 

 This basic information came from manv 



sources and was available before 1940. In 

 Ohio, Langlois (1937) was convinced 

 that the closed season was worthless for 

 increasing the numbers of bass. In Mich- 

 igan, Eschmeyer (1938) had poisoned 

 the entire fish populations of several 

 small lakes in which the fishing was poor 

 and had discovered an "overabundance of 

 fish" instead of a scarcity. Also in Mich- 

 igan, Carbine (1939) had investigated 

 the spawning and hatching of nest-build- 

 ing centrarchids in Deep Lake and had 

 discovered that many more voung were 

 produced than the lake could support. In 

 Illinois, David H. Thompson had fol- 

 lowed dominant broods of crappies in 

 Lake Senachwine for 4 years (1933- 

 1936) and had come to the conclusion 

 that, while sizes and numbers of fish 

 varied, the total weight of the popula- 

 tion remained fairly constant. Also in 

 Illinois, Thompson (Sc Bennett (1939r) 

 had demonstrated relationships between 

 length of food chains and poundages of 

 fish supported by ponds. In Alabama, 

 Swingle & Smith (1939) had demon- 

 strated the capacity of fish populations to 

 e.xpand or contract in relation to the 

 capacity of the habitat to support them. 



These researches on the dynamics of 

 fish populations formed the bases for 

 modern fish management. Yet old ideas 

 were difficult to uproot. Clarence R. 

 Lucas (1939) of the U. S. Bureau of 

 Fisheries published a paper titled "Game 

 Fish Management," in which he listed 

 what he termed the "operative" tech- 

 niques of fish management: (1) regula- 

 tion — closed seasons, bag limits; (2) fish 

 culture — rearing of game fishes for stock- 

 ing; (3) distribution — transportation and 

 liberation of hatchery-reared fish; (4) 

 stream and lake improvement; and (5) 

 predator control — the '-emoval of preda- 

 tory fishes or of fishes that otherwise 

 interfere with the production of the game 

 fish crop. This paper reflected e.xactly 

 the old conception of operation, but under 

 a new name. 



Thompson's ideas on fish management 

 were summarized in his contribution to 

 A Symposium on Hydrobioloyy. In a sec- 

 tion titled "The Fish Production of In- 

 land Streams and Lakes" Thompson 

 (1941) stated that production and yield 

 were synonymous — both represented the 



