174 



Illinois Natural History Survey Bulletin 



Vol. 27, Art. 2 



In December, 1943, conser%ation representa- 

 tives from the states of Illinois, Iowa, Mis- 

 souri, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, from the 

 United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and 

 from other interested agencies met at Dubuque, 

 Iowa, and formed the I'pper Mississippi River 

 Conservation Committee (Smith 1949). This 

 group was organized for the purpose of spon- 

 soring studies of the fishery and wildlife re- 

 sources of the Mississippi River from Ca- 

 ruthersville, Missouri, to Hastings, Minnesota. 

 The studies were designed to serve as a basis 

 for making scientifically sound recommenda- 

 tions for the management of these resources 

 (Barnickol & Starrett 1951:267). 



Field operations in the Missouri-Illi- 

 nois section were begun in March, 1944, 

 with the Conservation Commission of 

 Missouri, the Illinois Department of Con- 

 servation, and the Illinois Natural His- 

 tory Survey participatinj^. A crew con- 

 sisting of four men, working from the 

 Natural History Survey's laboratory boat 

 Anax, operated test nets and other types 

 of iishing gear at 19 stations between 

 Caruthersville, Missouri, and Warsaw, 

 Illinois. Two years later, in 1946, field 

 operations were resumed in the lowa-llli- 

 nois part of the river with the Iowa Con- 

 servation Commission and the two Illi- 

 nois agencies co-operating. The surve>' in 

 1944 was begun with Thompson in 

 charge of the laboratory boat and Paul G. 

 Barnickol as the chief fisheries investi- 

 gator for Missouri. Thompson resigned 

 from the Natural History Survey to go 

 with the Forest Preserve District of Cook 

 Count}', and in May, 1945, Barnickol 

 was employed to replace him. Barnickol 

 was in charge of the crew that covered 

 the upper part of the river from Burling- 

 ton to Dubuque in 1946. In May, 1948, 

 Barnickol was recalled to Missouri to be- 

 come Head of Fisheries Research for the 

 Conservation Commission. At that time 

 data from 2 years of field work on 

 the Mississippi Ri\er were only partl\ 

 analv/.ed. 



On July 1, I'HS, William C. Starrett 

 began employment by the Natural His- 

 tory Survey for the difficult task of work- 

 ing over Mississippi River fishery data 

 collected by others. In this he had the 

 co-operation of Barnickol ; their combined 

 efforts resulted in publication of two 

 articles of the Natural History Survey 

 Bulletin : "Commercial and Sport Fishes 

 of the Mississippi River Between Caruth- 



ersville, Missouri, and Dubuque, Iowa" 

 (Barnickol & Starrett 1951) and "Effi- 

 ciency and Selectivity of Commercial Fish- 

 ing Devices Used on the Mississippi 

 River" (Starrett <Sc Barnickol 1955). The 

 first of these articles listed the fishes 

 caught in the Mississippi Ri\er, their 

 distribution, size range, growth rates, 

 and other information on their biology. 

 A total of 26,037 fish weighing 28,294 

 pounds were taken in 1944 and 1946. 

 The second article presented a statistical 

 study of the efficiency and selectivity of 

 various types of gear used in the Mis- 

 sissippi River survey. The study was 

 made for the purpose of furnishing infor- 

 mation to those assigned the task of man- 

 aging the river's commercial fishery. It 

 included a consideration of seines, tram- 

 mel nets, basket traps, wing nets, hoop 

 nets, trap nets, and trot lines, the kinds 

 of fish most commonly captured or 

 trapped, the sizes of fish taken with 

 various mesh sizes, and the comparative 

 efficiency of several types of gear. 



(^ne of the interesting findings to come 

 out of the Mississippi River survey was 

 the collection of post-larval paddlefish, 

 Polyodon spat hula (Wal.), by Thomp- 

 son and Barnickol. While minnow sein- 

 ing oft a sand bar in the Mississippi near 

 Cape Girardeau, Missouri, on May 29, 

 1944, the Thompson and Barnickol party 

 took four paddlefish ranging in length 

 from 17 to 26 mm. Other than the col- 

 lection of seven paddlefish larvae (17-20 

 mm.) taken by Thompson in 1933 

 (Thompson 1933^), these are the only 

 young paddlefish of less than 35 mm. in 

 length known to have been collected. 



These post-larval paddlefish and other 

 paddlefish material were studied by R. 

 Weldon Larimore (1949, 1950), who de- 

 scribed the changes in the cranial nerves 

 of the paddlefish accompanying develop- 

 ment of the rostrum and gametogenesis 

 of Polyopia)! and its relationship to prac- 

 tical regulation of the paddlefish fishery. 



In 1948 Larimore was made a per- 

 manent member of the Aquatic Biology 

 staff. He had already nearly completed 

 a stud\' on the life history and ecology 

 of the warmouth, Chaenohryttus gulosus 

 (Cuvier), a fish that was being consid- 

 ered as a possible companion species for 

 largemouth bass in ponds. This study of 



