FISHES OF ILLINOIS 



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 insignificant pro- 

 portions. 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 steamboats, 200 

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

 gether 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 prod- 

 uct, the seines bringing in $25 1,562 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: European 

 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 mar- 

 ketable 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 admitted, 

 commercially of the first importance, the}>- are of sufficient economic 

 interest to make it the duty of all concerned to preserve them care- 

 fully and to take all practicable measures for their improvement and 

 development. Making due allowance for fishes sold in local markets, 

 distributed by peddlers, eaten by those who take them, and not rep- 

 resented, consequently, in published statistics of the trade, it may 

 fairly be said that our Illinois fisheries now yield at the rate of a 

 pound a day, throughout the year, of cheap and desirable food to 



