special significance. A 95% list was produced for each reach, in which species were 

 ranked by relative abundance (pounds per hour) and added to the list until 95% of 

 the total catch rate for that reach was obtained. Overall, these data indicate that fish 

 communities of the Illinois River in terms of weight continue to be dominated by 

 common carp, bigmouth buffalo, and channel catfish in the lower and middle river, 

 and common carp, smallmouth buffalo, gizzard shad, and largemouth bass in the 

 upper waterway. 



Alton (lower river). Nine species accounted for 95.2% of the total catch by 

 weight in pounds per hour (CPUE^,J in Alton Reach (Tables 8 and 9). Channel 

 catfish CPUEwWas highest at 19.06 (32.5% of the total), which is the highest CPUEw 

 for this species observed in Alton Reach since the beginning of project F-101-R; low 

 CPUE^v^or channel catfish was 4.45 in 1989 (Lerczak et al. 1994, 1995, and 1996). 

 Common carp ranked second with a CPUEv., of 1 5.71 (26.7% of the total) which is 

 much higher than occurred in 1 995, when common carp CPUE^.,- was 6.63. Bigmouth 

 buffalo ranked third with a CPUE^of 6.61 (1 1.3% of the total). Bigmouth buffalo 

 CPUE^,; was much lower than in 1995, when the species ranked first with a CPUE^^ 

 of 18 27, but is similar to catches of other segments of project F-101-R. Largemouth 

 bass CPUEy^ was 5.75 (9.8% of the total) All other species accounted for less than 

 ten percent of the total catch by weight. 



La Grange (middle river). Six species accounted for 94.2% of the total catch 

 by weight in La Grange Reach (Tables 8 and 9). This is notably fewer species than 



20 



