348 



BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



mesh that will take a marketable fish. In 1920 chubs were so scarce in Lake Michigan 

 that many boats had to quit fishing for them, even with a minimum mesh. In Lake 

 Huron the schools are less depleted because the drain on their numbers has been less 

 severe, but here the same sort of situation obtains. The Canadian fishermen, with 

 their minimum 3-inch mesh, have had to give up fishing on grounds where the American 

 fishermen competed with their 2%-inch nets; and even where 3-inch nets were used 

 exclusively, as in Georgian Bay and at Southampton, the production has dwindled. 

 Chub fishing was begun from Southampton about 1910, 10 to 12 miles WNW. of 

 the city. After three years the catches began to fall off on these grounds until a 

 point was reached at which the nets were operated on a narrow margin of profit. 

 Efforts of the tugs to find new grounds have proved unsuccessful so far. Inside 

 Georgian Bay and at Tobermory matters appear to be still worse. Here the industry 

 began about 1912, and at no time have more than four or five small gasoline boats 

 per year been engaged in chub fishing. At every port on the bay fishermen say that 

 four nets now will not catch what one caught formerly. They say that the nets 

 on the old chub grounds now are filled with the lawyer {Lota maculosa). Whether 

 the lawyer preys on the chub and is responsible for the disappearance of the latter 

 is a question. While the decrease in the abundance of the fish has not been marked 

 on the American shore, nevertheless the consensus of opinion among American 

 fishermen indicates that the fish are becoming less abundant. Since about 1917, 

 it has been necessary for every tug to increase the length of its gangs to maintain the 

 weight of its catches at the average level of preceding years. 



Drastic protective measures must be enacted if the chubs are not to be exter- 

 minated completely. One of their number, the blackfin, already is extinct in three 

 of the four lakes where it was commercially important, and their close relative, the 

 Erie herring, which existed for years in almost fabulous abundance, is virtually gone. 

 It seems quite impossible that the already seriously reduced schools should longwith- 

 stand the drains of the present fisheries, the most intensive in the history of the 



LEUCICHTHYS JOHANNA Wagner 



The Chub (Fig. 14) 



Argyrosomus johannse Wagner, 1910, pp. 957-958, Lake Michigan; not of Jordan and Evermann, 

 1911. 



Argyrosomus hoyi Evermann and Smith, 1896, pp. 310-312, in part, Lake Michigan. 



Leucichthys johannse, the chub, has been described from Lake Michigan and is 

 known to occur in Michigan and Huron only of the Great Lakes series. In both 

 lakes the species is represented by pale fish, which seldom attain more than moderate 

 size for the genus, and which have few gill rakers on the first branchial arch, a more 

 or less ovate body shape, as seen from the side, and a rather long snout and paired 

 fins. The species prefers the deeper waters and spawns in late summer. The Huron 

 race appears to differ from the typical form in having somewhat fewer scales in the 

 lateral line and fewer scale rows, more pectoral rays, a somewhat longer head, snout, 

 and paired fins, and to be somewhat more pigmented. 



Type 



The type is a male specimen (catalogue No. 87353, U. S. National Museum) 265 

 millimeters in length, taken "some 18 miles off Racine, Wis., in Lake Michigan, in 



