16 
THE FISHERIES OF ILLINOIS. 
The distinction of Illinois as a fish-producing state is to be found in its 
relation to the Mississippi river and some of the most important branches 
of that stream. Bordered by the main river for the whole length of its 
longest side, by the second largest tributary of the Mississippi for 130 miles 
of its southeastern boundary, and by the Wabash for 198 miles on the east, the 
state is also traversed diagonally by the Illinois river, admirably adapted, 
by its sluggish current, by the many bottom-land lakes connected with it at. 
low water, by the extensive breeding-grounds afforded to fishes during the 
period of the spring over-flow, and by the vast abundance of fish food in its. 
waters at all seasons of the year, to Support an unusually large and varied 
fish population. Illinois is consequently far in the lead of all the states of | 
the Mississippi Valley in respect to river-fishery products. It markets a 
- larger value per annum in fishes taken from flowing streams than all the 
states immediately surrounding it taken together. The total for this state 
in 1899 was $517,420, and that for Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, Indiana and 
Wisconsin combined was $435,137. Ilinois furnishes, indeed, more than 
one-third of the fishes sent to market from all the streams of the Mississ- 
ippi Valley—valued in 1899 at $1,473,040. Furthermore, the Illinois river 
and its tributaries produced in 1899, 72 per cent of all the fishes taken 
from the streams of the state, and a fourth of the entire fish product of the 
Mississippi Valley came in that year from this one stream. The totals for 
the different Illinois stream systems were as follows: Illinois, $371,110; 
Mississippi; $118,278; Wabash, $38,065; Ohio, $20,029; Kaskaskia, $3,002; 
Big Muddy, $1,136. r 
The Great Lake fisheries in Illinois waters are of insignificant propor- 
tions. The total longshore product for Cook and Lake counties during the 
last census year was $12,500—about $2,000 less than the sum derived from 
our river turtles alone. ie 
The river fisheries of the state gave employment in 1899 to 2,389 men, and 
utilized a capital of $225,000.. Sixteen steamboats, 200 house-boats and 1,500 
row-boats were used in these fisheries, together with about 45 miles of 
seines, 10 miles of trammel-nets, half a mile of gill-nets, ande 14,000 fyke- 
nets, pound-nets and traps. The seines and fyke-nets together yielded about 
80 per cent of the product, the seines bringing in $251,562 and the fyke-nets 
' $210,054. Set lines yielded $37,191; trammel-nets, $24,185; traps, $2,707; 
gill-nets, $1,290; drift-lines, $1,141; pound-nets, $811; and hand-lines, $701. 
The dozen most productive kinds of Illinois fishes, according to the sta- 
tistics of the last census year, were as follows: European carp, $244,322; 
buffalo, $111,707; catfishes and bullheads, $68,535; sheepshead or drum, 
$17,729; crappie, $14,419; sunfish, $12,067; black bass, $10,842; suckers and 
red-horse, $7,845; paddle-fish, $6,210; white, yellow, and rock bass, $5,601; 
Jake and shovel-nosed sturgeon, $3.904; wall-eyed pike, $1,174: 
About three dozen of our 150 species of Illinois fishes have a marketable 
value as food, and a dozen or more. may be classed as edible, although not 
popular enough .or abundant enough within our limits to have any commer- 
cial value as Illinois products. A dozen of the most useful species are of 
