342 



BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OP FISHERIES 



The first fish of this kind were caught for the salt-fish trade, and not until there 

 was a demand for smoked fish did chub fishing flourish. Toward the end of the 

 last century the chub supply of Lake Michigan could no longer easily supply the 

 demand and the bluefins were marketed from Lake Superior. For about 10 years, or 

 up to about 1907, these fish were caught and then suddenly became commercially 

 extinct. About 1902 the use of small-meshed nets was begun on Lake Huron, and 

 since about 1910 chubs have been sold at some time out of every port that could 

 produce them. Lakes Michigan and Huron remain, then, the source of the chub 

 supply. What follows pertains particularly to these two lakes. 



Chubs are not sold fresh in the markets at any of the ports where taken. How- 

 ever, if properly cooked, the fresh flesh is not inferior to that of the whitefish, accord- 

 ing to many. The bulk of the catches has been forwarded to Chicago or other 

 mid western cities for smoking. Thus prepared, the flesh is very palatable. 



In late years the chub supply exceeded the demand largely because of the sub- 

 stitution of species of Lake Winnipeg Leucichthys and the Lake Erie herring. The 

 former are inferior in quality and were used only in winter, when the Great Lakes 

 supply was largely shut off. Since the wide use of 2^-inch netting for chubs on 

 Lake Michigan and the consequent capture of small fish, the Erie herring, or cisco, 

 competed strongly with the chubs, even to the extent of displacing them in the 

 Chicago markets. 



With the failure in 1925 of the Erie cisco, of which some 15,000,000 to 40,- 

 000,000 pounds had been marketed annually, the New York markets lost their supply 

 of fish for smoking and Chicago buyers faced the competition of New York buyers in 

 the chub market. Contracts for chubs were let at fancy prices, and where two 

 years before the fishermen had to fish chubs at the pleasure of the buyers, in 1926 

 the tables were turned completely and chubs became the principal product of the 

 lakes that could supply them. Where formerly only occasional fishermen had chub 

 gangs, in 1926 everyone who could acquire the netting began the pursuit of the 

 severely depleted schools. 



Gill nets, which in Wisconsin, 3 Illinois, and Indiana are of 2^-inch, in Michigan 

 of 2%-inch, and in Canada of 3-inch stretched mesh, are used to catch the fish. 

 The nets commonly employed are about 5 feet deep when in use and are set on the 

 bottom at depths of 10 to 100 fathoms. In Lake Huron the nets are set, by prefer- 

 ence, in water of 60 to 75 fathoms, where water of such depth is accessible. At 

 the northern and southern ends of the lake 50 fathoms is the maximum depth easily 

 reached by the fishermen. While there is deeper water in the two lakes and the 

 fishermen have taken chubs in it, they prefer to keep their nets out of it. Unless 

 the fines of the nets are new, there is danger that they will part from the strain 

 that is imposed on them in lifting them from more than 75 fathoms of water. 



"Mud" bottom is preferred by all chub fishermen. This bottom (judging from 

 the samples brought up in the slits of the leads and from the descriptions of the 

 fishermen) has the physical properties of clay and may be gray, blue-gray, yellow, 

 or red in color. It is designated as clay on the United States Lake Survey charts, 

 though in some areas, especially in Georgian Bay and in Lake Huron off Tobermory 

 and Southampton, the chub nets are set in areas designated on the chart as mud. 



s The new Wisconsin law reads that after July 1, 1926, the mesh may not be less than 2'A inches. 



