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Fish Reports

2001 Report

Pool 4, Upper Mississippi River 2001 Fish Collection Summary

This report is a bullet summary of the Long Term Resource Monitoring Program's fish collection efforts conducted by the Lake City Field Station on Pool 4, Upper Mississippi River during 2001. Information on changes in fish catch over all years can be obtained from the Graphical Fish Database Browser.

• 338 fish collections were conducted using 10 gear types (Table 2.1).
  
  
• Gear allocations among strata remained consistent for all three sampling periods except for four fewer day electrofishing runs during period 3.
  
  
• Water levels were significantly above the long-term mean from April until mid-June (Figure 1.1). Sampling started on June 25 when water levels were receding. Water levels remained close to the mean until period 2 started. Water levels then dropped below the long-term average mean for periods 2 and 3. During period 3, four elecrofishing runs were not completed because of low water conditions in the backwater areas of upper Pool 4.
  
  
• Of the 338 fish collections, 284 sites were from randomly selected sites. Fifty-four were from fixed sites.
  
  
• Backwater, main channel border, and side channel received the most sampling effort (Table 2.1).
  
  
• 62,884 fish, representing 66 species and 3 hybrids, were collected (Table 3.1).
  
  
• Historical fish distribution records for the Upper Mississippi River (Pitlo et al. 1995) document 99 fish species from Pool 4. To date, the Lake City Field Station has collected a total 89 species and 5 hybrids.
  
  
• During the 2001 fish sampling season, the highest three total catch were 37,231 emerald shiners, 5,928 gizzard shad, and 4,465 bluegill.
  
  
• One paddlefish, a Minnesota-listed threatened species, was collected. One black buffalo and one blue sucker, Minnesota-listed special concern species, were collected (Table 3.1).
  
  
• Mean catch-per-unit-effort and standard error for fish collected by gears using stratified random (Tables 4.1-12.1) and fixed-site sampling (Tables 14.1-21.1) for each stratum are shown.
  
  
• Length distributions for selected species of fish are shown in Figures 2.1 to19.1.