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extent, a very valuable industry, and deprive a large number of men 

 of employment. What is of much importance, it would take away 

 from the river towns especially a large part of the business upon 

 which they subsist, and in the end would defeat the very object de- 

 sired by those advocating the abolishment of the seine, vz: The in- 

 crease of the game fishes for angling purposes. 



A great hue and cry is raised about the immense damage the seine 

 does on the Illinois river. I think that we can safely assert that 

 more harm is wrought by the injudicious use of hook and line in the 

 river itself than by the seine. We have given this matter especial 

 attention, and note that more fish of less than prescribed market size 

 are brought in and offered for sale by the anglers than by the fisher- 

 men who use seines of proper mesh. 



We have, at various times, seen hundreds of small bass and crap- 

 pie taken by an angler in a day's fishing near the dams, and many of 

 them were thrown away as too small to use, or after being kept on a 

 string all day they were either dead, or injured to such an extent as 

 to make it useless to put them back in the water. There is no limit 

 to the size of fish that can be taken with hook and line, but there 

 should be. 



The fish commissioners conceive it to be their duty to undertake 

 to protect the fish, for the angler, but not for him alone, and do not 

 believe it to be incumbent on them to destroy a great industry to 

 gratify personal pleasure. 



The time will come in this State, as it has already in older coun- 

 tries, when the waters will have to produce their full share of food, 

 as a matter of public economy, and there will always be, as now, a 

 necessity for the use of some means of taking the fish when of suffi- 

 cient size for use, and to do it we know of no other appliance better 

 than the seine, but that, of course, to be used under proper restraint. 



We are informed that another effort will be made during the next 

 session of the Legislature to enact a law to prevent the use of the 

 seine. The matter should be very carefully considered, and the fact9 

 thoroughly canvassed before legislation is enacted, and it should be 

 prompted, not by sentiment, but the consideration of the best inter- 

 ests of all concerned. 



FISHWAYS. 



But few fishways have been put in during the past two seasons. 

 Several have been ordered repaired, and but little complaint has been 

 received on this account. 



In appendix we give illustration of the plans of fishing in use in 

 this State. 



CARP. 



We can not omit mention of the carp. As a money producer the 

 Illinois waters have never had its equal, and while there are many 

 objectionable features resulting from its introduction into parts of 

 the State, etc., as a whole it has to the mass of the people been of 



