Fishery bulletin of the Fish and Wildlife Service - NOAA

WHITEFISH FISHERY OF LAKES HURON AND MICHIGAN 307
same time (1930-1939). Further considerations of these more recent fluctuations
will be found in the next section.
The take of whitefish was relatively high in the Wisconsin waters of Lake Michigan
12 in most of the earlier years for which records are available. The catch averaged
481,000 pounds for the years, 1889-1897, and was less than 300,000 pounds in
only 1 of 8 years (1890). The yield of-886,000 pounds in 1897 was the highest for
which there is a record. (The statistics for 1885 include species other than whitefish.)
Statistics of the production of whitefish in the Wisconsin waters of Lake Michigan
are available for only 2 of the 10 years, 1898-1907. The catches of both 1899
and 1903 were a little above 100,000 pounds and at approximately the level of production
for 1908-1917. The average annual take for 12 years within the 20-year period,
1898-1917 was 116,000 pounds. In these 12 years the production exceeded 150,000
pounds only once (1912) and was less than 100,000 pounds twice (1910 and 1914).
An increase occurred in 1918 in the general level of production. The average
catch of the 8 years, 1918-1925, was 256,000 pounds. Production within the period
was variable and ranged from 131,000 pounds in 1920 to 443,000 pounds in 1923.
The year 1926 was the first in an 8-year period during which the output of
whitefish in the Wisconsin waters of Lake Michigan did not fall below 300,000 pounds.
The average 1926-1933 yield was 508,000 pounds, the maximum of 842,000 pounds in
1931 constituting the highest production since 1897. The increased catch in Wisconsin
waters of Lake Michigan in 1926-1933 corresponds to the high production in the State
of Michigan waters of Lakes Michigan and Huron in approximately the same general
period.
The peak Wisconsin yield of 1931 was followed by a rapid if irregular decrease.
The average annual production of the most recent 6-year period, 1934-1939, was
171,000 pounds. The catch of 111,000 pounds in 1939 was the lowest since 1916.
Production was below the 1939 level in only 3 years (1910, 1914, and 1916) of the
42 years for which there are records in the period, 1889-1939. Probably the best estimate
of the normal take of whitefish for these Wisconsin waters is the grand average
for all years (1889-1939), namely, 295,000 pounds.
Despite defects (inclusion of the catches of blackfins, longjaws, and Menominee
whitefish) in the whitefish statistics for the whole of Lake Michigan in 1879 and
1885 (in 1890 a separation of the catches of whitefish and of blackfins, longjaws, and
pilots was possible for the entire lake but not for Michigan waters; Wisconsin data
were taken from State sources) the data provide evidence, nevertheless, that the level
of production of whitefish in the earlier years was considerably higher than in later
years. The only information on the extent to which the whitefish statistics for
Lake Michigan may have been distorted by the inclusion of the catches of blackfins,
longjaws., and Menominee whitefish is provided by the data for 1890. In that year,
according to the Report of the United States Commissioner of Fisheries, the catch of
these three species made up 1,398,238 pounds of the reported whitefish take of
5,455,079 pounds in the entire lake. (Data were not given on the production of the
species named, in the waters of the individual States.) The catch of whitefish alone
(4,056,841 pounds), therefore, made up 74.4 percent of the combined output of whitefish,
blackfins, longjaws, and Menominee whitefish.
If it is assumed that whitefish made up the same percentage of the reported
catch in Lake Michigan in 1879 and 1885 as in 1890, the following estimates of
production in these years are obtained: 1879, 8,951,000 pounds; 1885, 6,438,000 pounds.
To be sure, the use of the percentage derived from statistical data for 1890 for the
estimation of. the catch of whitefish in earlier years is open to severe criticism.
Undoubtedly, the relative abundance of whitefish and of blackfins, longjaws, and
Menominee whitefish in the catch varied from year to year. Nevertheless, the preceding
estimates, inexact as they may be, together with records for 1889 and 1890
provide strong evidence in support of the belief that production of whitefish in the
11 For & discussion of Wisconsin's whitefish production in Green Bay and Lake Michigan proper separately, see appendix C.