Biological Survey — Oswego Watershed 41 



Traps made of wire meshing were used successfully in the capture 

 of perch, rock bass, sunfish, young bass, sculpins and sticklebacks, 

 but were rather ineffective in taking minnows. These traps were 

 made 5' x 3' x 2' with a deep funnel opening at one end. The size of 

 mesh used for perch and bass traps was 1", for the small fish such 

 as blobs and sticklebacks, %". Set lines were used at various 

 depths baited with worms and alewives. They were the only effec- 

 tive means we had of capturing eels and were useful in taking bull- 

 heads,, suckers, catfish, whitensh, rainbow trout and lake trout. 

 Seines were found by far the most effective method of taking min- 

 nows and other small fish in shallow water. Lengths of thirty to 

 fifty feet, made of linen thread, Yi" mesh, tied at the joints, with a 

 bag at the center of the net were found best for this lake work. 



The various appliances used were tried in widely separated lo- 

 calities so as to get a fair estimate of distribution. For example, 

 in Seneca lake where we worked for four AA 7 eeks the trout nets were 

 set only four times in situations where we expected a large catch. 

 Tn three out of four of these sets we took 12, 18 and 38 trout respec- 

 tively. In Keuka lake we failed to catch trout in any numbers be- 

 cause we found it impossible to set our gill net on the trout 

 grounds, due to the great number of line fishermen. Fishing in 

 this way we did not take a great number of edible fish — not enough, 

 if valued at market prices, to pay the wages of two fishermen for 

 the period. This shows that fish cannot be caught in great numbers 

 except in favored localities. We managed, however, to capture 56 

 of the 69 species of fish which have been recorded in the Finger 

 lakes. The remaining twelve are fishes of very unusual or acci- 

 dental occurrence in these waters. Besides several which had not 

 been reported from the lakes we added at least three species which 

 have not formerly been recorded from the drainage, that is : stone 

 cat (Schilbeodes insignis) ; the sturgeon sucker (Catostomus catos- 

 tomus) ; and the lake chub {Couesius plumbeus). 



