GREAT LAKES COREGONIDS 



537 



METHODS OF CAPTURE 



The whitefish is caught in Lake Erie by means of gill nets, trap nets, and pound 

 nets. In the eastern half of the lake gill nets are employed most commonly, while 

 trap nets are most abundant on the south shore, chiefly over the western half, and 

 pounds are used most at points along the north shore. The whitefish is now so 

 reduced in numbers that gill-net fishing for whitefish is being discontinued gradually 

 everywhere on the lake; but the use of the other nets is not affected so heavily, as 

 this apparatus takes all kinds of fish and is not dependent on the whitefish for profit. 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 



Relatively few specimens have been collected, though many hundreds have 

 been seen. The data for collected specimens are given in Table 92 and show records 

 from four ports of the south shore. At least a few whitefish are to be had at some 

 season out of any port on the lake, and formerly they were more or less abundant 

 all along the shores and throughout the lake's extent, except possibly in the deepest 

 part of the eastern depression. 



SEASONAL MOVEMENTS 



As in the other lakes, the whitefish approach and retreat from the shores during 

 the season. 



Data from the pound nets. — Pound nets are used most widely in the Canadian waters 

 on the north shore of the lake. Data collected from the fishermen who operate such 

 gear out of the ports of Pelee Island (John McCormick), Merlin (A. Crewe), Ridge- 

 town (W. D. Bates), Port Bruce (W. McGuire), and Port Dover (A. B. Hoover and 

 W. F. Kolbe) show that the whitefish run best in the pounds during the month of 

 May. After June 1 to 15 the run is over entirely. In the fall the fish reappear 

 toward the last of October and run through the month of November. In most ports 

 the fall run exceeds that of the spring. 



On the south shore few pound nets are employed, such apparatus being replaced 

 by trap nets. At the west end of the lake whitefish are taken no longer except in the 

 fall, when they appear on the shoals on the western flat in late October and during 

 November. 



Data from the gill nets. — -In years past when whitefish were common throughout 

 the lake they were taken in suitable gear during any part of the season. Now the 

 employment of gill nets, which depend on whitefish alone for their profitable use, is 

 restricted to certain weeks of the fishing season. At the eastern end of the lake the 

 period of profitable netting for whitefish is longest. Out of Erieau, Ontario (Norman 

 Macaulay), Port Stanley, Ontario (C. Finlay and Arthur Glover), Dunkirk, N. Y. 

 (Walter Murray, George O'Brien, and Thomas Desmond), Barcelona, N. Y. (H. 

 Monroe), Erie, Pa. (Joseph Ferguson), and Ashtabula, Ohio (C. Owen), nets are set 

 in the spring around March 15 in Canadian waters outside of the 10-mile zone 

 reserved for pound-net fisheries, and in American waters at depths of 10 to 25 fathoms. 

 In late years the season lasted for four to six weeks, or until May 1 or 15. In July 

 the nets again were put in the deep waters of the eastern end of the lake, and the 

 season continued to August 1 to 15. In the fall whitefish have been available out 



