COMMON FISHES OF MISSISSIPPI RIVER 
183 
men as abundant while regarded by scientific collectors as rare, unless by chance 
the collections happened to be made at the right season and in the right place. 
According to Forbes and Richardson (1908) it was reported to be abundant at Pitts- 
burgh, far up the Ohio River. 
At Keokuk, although few examples were seen during 1915 and 1916, one or more 
were observed in each month (except March) from February to September, inclu- 
sive. Only the market at Warsaw then handled more than an occasional sucker. Mr. 
Jackson, the proprietor of that market, said he had received as much as 500 pounds 
at one time during the winter of 1915-16; that he had about 500 pounds during the 
first half of June, 1916, about a dozen fish from then to September, and about 200 
pounds in the first week of September. In former times, according to Mr. Jackson, 
speaking in 1926, blue suckers could be taken all the winter in the deep water below 
the rapids. 
The blue sucker attains a length of about 30 inches and a weight of 15 pounds 
(or, as some say, of 25 pounds) . It may be caught on set lines, in fyke nets, or in seines ; 
a favorite method of capture during the spawning migration was with the use of float- 
ing trammel nets drifted at night over the rapids; catches (with the trammel net) of 
800 or 900 pounds in a night are mentioned. 
Eggs are said to be deposited in May and June. (Forbes and Richardson, 1908.) 
Shira (1917a) mentions successful experiments in the hatching of eggs of the blue 
sucker at Fairport. 
There was, in 1926, almost complete unanimity of opinion among fisherman as to 
the virtual disappearance of this fish from the upper river, although reports differ as 
to the manner of disappearance — whether it was gradual or sudden. It seems clear 
that in the region above the dam the blue sucker is only a memory. In all this region, 
which includes places where the fish once appeared seasonally in significant runs, 
practically no fisherman was encountered who reported the appearance now of more 
than two or three blue suckers each year. 
That suckers, exclusive of buffalo fishes, have for long been of declining impor- 
tance in the commercial fishery of the Mississippi Basin is indicated by the following- 
figures from reports of statistical surveys, compiled by Sette (1925, p. 209) to show 
