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Fish Reports

2002 Report

Pool 8, Upper Mississippi River 2002 Fish Collection Summary

This report is a summary of the Long Term Resource Monitoring Program's (LTRMP) fish collection efforts conducted by the Onalaska Field Station on Pool 8, Upper Mississippi River during 2002. Information on changes in fish catch over all years can be obtained from the Graphical Fish Database Browser.

• 270 fish collections were conducted using six gear types (Table 2.2).
  
  
• A 37% reduction in total effort (from 2001 levels) was implemented. The reduction included dropping all off-shore gear types in two strata (tandem fyke and tandem mini fyke nets) and two additional gear types in all strata (night electrofishing and seining) for a total of four gear types eliminated. Paired hoop net sets for the impounded offshore stratum were also eliminated (Table 2.2).
  
  
• Despite moderately high discharge and a pool-wide drawdown during much of the sampling season, water levels did not affect sampling activities (Table 2.2; Figure 1.2).
  
  
• Of the 270 fish collections, 240 were from randomly selected sites. Thirty collections were made at fixed sites.
  
  
• Backwater, side channel border, and main channel border strata received the most sampling effort (Table 2.2).
  
  
• 22,574 fish were collected representing 65 species and 3 hybrids (Table 3.2).
  
  
• Historical fish distribution records for the Upper Mississippi River (Pitlo et al. 1995) document 99 fish species from Pool 8.
  
  
• The LTRMP species total for Pool 8 before the 2000 season was 90; no new species were added to this total since 1997.
  
  
• 11 river redhorse and 4 speckled chubs, both listed as threatened in Wisconsin, were collected (Table 3.2).
  
  
• Mean catch-per-unit-effort and standard error for fish collected by gears using stratified random (Tables 4.2-11.2) and fixed-site sampling (Tables 17.2-21.2) for each stratum are shown.
  
  
• Length distributions for selected species of fish are shown in Figures 2.2 to 19.2.