5 



l.-rgest fishing clubs of this State and Missouri, a limit as to size 

 fish allowed to be taken is made, and no one is allowed to take 

 fish off the premises of less than the specified size — the standard 

 01 length being, we think? seven inches for bass and six for crop- 

 pie. Other clubs will doubtless fall into line and exact compliance 

 with the same or similar rules and regulations ; but there yet re- 

 main those outside of such associii lions who find their way into- 

 every nook and corner, so to speak, and catch anytbing and every- 

 thnig that will take the bait offered, ruthlessly destroying fish too 

 small to eat, which could be put back immediately with but slight 

 risk of having been damaged by the hook. The number who "go 

 a-fishing" is much larger tban most people imagine, and the love 

 of the sport is greatly on the increase, too. On one day, it has 

 been estimated by competent jadges, at least two thousand people 

 went from one point to indulge in the sport, and it was not the 

 day set aside for fishing by Christian communities, either. When 

 the number of young fish destroyed by this means is added to the 

 wholesale slaughter by seine fishing, it would seem sufficient to con- 

 vince anyone of the urgent need of good protective laws and in- 

 creased means for propagating and distributing fish to replenish 

 depleted streams, and meet not only the usual demands upon our 

 waters, but the increased interest in hook and line fishing and the 

 growing demand for fish as food as well. 



Fl&H DISTRIBUTED, 



The character and variety of fish distributed in the season of 

 1884-5 differed but little from former distributions, and consisted 

 largely of game fish, such as both varieties of black bass, pickerel, 

 wall-eyed pike, croppie, goggle- eye or rock bass, ringed perch, striped 

 bass, and a limited number of catfish and sunfisb. And while all 

 of them were native to the waters of the State generally, yet when 

 put into new lakes or depleted streams did not seem to thrive in 

 some waters as well as in others. An inquiry and investigation as 

 to causes of difference, has demonstrated, we think, beyond question 

 that it is as essential to furnish food for the fish as to restock the 

 streams. Acting upon such conclusion, for the past season we have 

 pursued the policy of distributing the fish juf^t as they were taken, 

 not sorting so closely as was the rnle previously. So that in plant- 

 ing with the game or predacious fish the softer-rayed or commoner 

 varieties, we not only stock streams, and expect an increase from 

 the fine fish, but plant, as well, an ever-increasing supply of fooil 

 for them. This conclusion w^as not reached until after the subject 

 had been fully investigated and demonstrated by comparative ex- 

 periments. The President of our Board, Mr. N. K. Fairbank, at his 

 summer home on Lake Geneva, owns and maintains a fish farm of 

 huge proportions, and has for a number of years, in conjunction 

 with other residents of that vicinity, caused to be hatched and turned 

 into the lake large (juantities of the salmon trout yearly. After a 

 suflicient lapse of time an effort was made to find, if possible, some 

 of the results of such planting; but the search was futile, not one 

 being taken, although every effort was used to ob'ain a fine idea as 

 o what the lake contained. The cause of the failure to stock the- 

 lake with this variety was undoubtedly owing to a lack of proper 



