term Illinois River Fish Population Monitoring, and the silverband shiner has not 

 been collected during earlier segments of project F-101-R. Overall, results from this 

 year's sampling were similar to data collected in recent years. Numbers of 

 individuals and pounds of each species collected have varied, however, both 

 temporally (among years) and also spatially (among sites) along the watePA'ay. 



Although gizzard shad ranked first in number offish collected per hour in all 

 reaches, numbers of other small forage species and also of large benthivores and 

 piscivores varied among reaches. The relatively high numbers of gizzard shad in 

 the watePA'ay, most of which were small enough to be vulnerable, should provide an 

 excellent forage base for sport fishes such as largemouth and smallmouth bass. 

 Largemouth bass were collected in all reaches, but catches in numbers were highest 

 in Peoria, Dresden, and Alton Reaches. Smallmouth bass were collected (in low 

 abundance) only in Peoria and Starved Rock Reaches. It is possible that 

 smallmouth bass populations are under represented in our samples; this species is 

 known to avoid habitats occupied by largemouth bass (Becker 1983) and may not 

 occupy side-channels during late summer. An important sauger fishery exists below 

 the Peoria Dam but Vv'e have collected only 18 sauger in the La Grange Reach 

 during project F-101-R sampling (six sauger were collected in 1994, one in 1995, 

 and 11 in 1996). 



The highest densities of sportfish species exist in the lower and middle 

 watePA'ay. Three of the top four ranked species in Alton Reach are highly favored by 



27 



