FISHES OF ILLINOIS 



produced in 1899, 72 per cent, of all the fishes taken from the 

 streams of the state, and a fourth of the entire fish product of 

 the Mississippi Valley came in that year from this one stream. 

 The totals for the different Illinois stream systems were as 

 follows: Illinois, $371,110; Mississippi, $118,278; Wabash, 

 $38,065; Ohio, $20,029; Kaskaskia, $3,002; Big Muddy, $1,136. 



The Great Lake fisheries in Illinois waters are of insignifi- 

 cant proportions. The total longshore product for Cook and 

 Lake counties during the last census year was $12,500 about 

 $2,000 less than the sum derived from our river turtles alone. 



The river fisheries of the state gave employment in 1899 to 

 2,389 men, and utilized a capital of $225,000. Sixteen steam- 

 boats, 200 house-boats, and 1,500 row-boats were used in these 

 fisheries, together with about 45 miles of seines, 10 miles of 

 trammel-nets, half a mile of gill-nets, and 14,000 fyke-nets, 

 pound-nets, and traps. The seines and the fyke-nets together 

 yielded about 80 per cent, of the product, the seines bringing 

 in $251,562 and the fyke-nets $210,054, Set-lines yielded 

 $37,191; trammel-nets, $24,185; traps, $2,707; gill-nets, $1,290; 

 drift-lines, $1,141; pound-nets, $811; and hand-lines, $701. 



The dozen most productive kinds of Illinois fishes, according 

 to the statistics of the last census year, were as follows : Euro- 

 pean carp, $244,322; buffalo, $111,707; catfishes and bullheads, 

 $68,535; sheepshead or drum, $17,729; crappie, $14,419; sunfish, 

 $12,067; black bass, $10,842; suckers and red-horse, $7,845; 

 paddle-fish, $6,210; white, yellow, and rock bass, $5,601; lake 

 and shovel-nosed sturgeon, $3,904; wall-eyed pike, $1,174. 



About three dozen of our 150 species of Illinois fishes have 

 a marketable value as food, and a dozen more may be classed as 

 edible, although not popular enough or abundant enough within 

 our limits to have any commercial value as Illinois products. 

 A dozen of the more useful species are of really good quality, 

 and half of these are among the best of the fresh- water fishes. 

 In the following list the edible species are distinguished in classes 

 of graduated importance, according to our judgment of the 

 estimation in which these fishes are generally held. A few species 

 are put in a lower class than their quality would call for because 

 of their infrequent occurrence in our fisheries. 



Although the fisheries of the state are not, it must be ad- 

 mitted, commercially of the first importance, they are of suffi- 

 cient economic interest to make it the duty of all concerned to 

 preserve them carefully and to take all practicable measures for 



