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Introduction

A STUDY OF THE FISHES CAUGHT BY ANGLERS IN DOWNTOWN MADISON, WISCONSIN By Laura Gintz University of Wisconsin - Madison INTRODUCTION This paper is concerned with information about the sport fishery in Madison, Wisconsin. It looks at what anglers are catching, how much they are catching, the area and depth where they are fishing, and how they are fishing. The data was collected from anglers on downtown Madison lakes by University students to get information about some of the common fish species on the lakes. The species examined included bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus), black crappie (Pomoxis nigromaculatus), white crappie (Pomoxis annularis), perch (Perca flavescens), walleye (Stizostedion vitreum), largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides), and northern pike (Esox lucius). The data was then used to compare species composition, size and age distributions, catch rates and habitat of Madison lakes fishes sampled by the winter anglers. METHODS All data was collected on February 7, 2004. Groups of two to three University of Wisconsin - Madison students in the Ecology of Fishes class went out onto one of four lakes in Madison, Wisconsin to get information from anglers. Half of the students went out onto the lakes at 8:30 a.m. and the other half went out at 12:30 p.m. The four lakes studied were Lake Mendota, Lake Wingra, Monona Bay, and Mud Lake. The locations looked at on Lake Mendota were Lake Street, Picnic Point, the shoreline, southwest Mendota, and University Bay. Each group interviewed five anglers and filled out a data sheet for each angler. A total of 128 anglers were interviewed, however the data for one of the anglers was removed from the data set because they were fishing for zero hours. ...read more.

Middle

All anglers on Lake Wingra had a CPUE of 0 (Figure 9). The anglers on Monona Bay had fairly even distributions of their CPUEs ranging from 0 to 50 (Figure 10). Mud Lake's CPUEs were skewed a little to the left with most anglers having a CPUE of 0 or 0.7 (Figure 11). Monona Bay had the largest CPUE at 50 (Figure 10). DISCUSSION Bluegills seem to be the most abundant fish species in the Madison lakes because many more bluegills were caught than any other species. Largemouth bass were found to be the least abundant species since only one of them were caught. Sizes of the fishes did increase with age in this study. Male and female size at various ages of bluegills was somewhat different. However, they seemed to become more similar as the fish became older. Fishing more than one line does seem to influence the CPUE. The more lines that are fished with, the lower the CPUE. So, the effort does not seem to pay off for having more than one line. CPUE varies as factors change. As depth increases, CPUE seems to decrease. The CPUE relates to sites, too. Lake Wingra had the smallest CPUEs, whereas Monona Bay had the highest CPUEs. One other observation was that the CPUE was significantly smaller in the morning on Lake Mendota and Mendota Bay than in the afternoon, but Mud Lake had a higher CPUE in the morning than in the afternoon. The data indicates some difference in the depth distribution among the species. ...read more.

Conclusion

2 3 0.75 2.66 15 1.88 2 4 2 3 16 2.667 2.25 12.5 1.852 1.33 0 0 0.25 0 0 2 40 6.667 3 0 0 3.5 3 0.429 1.86 5 0.896 4 0 0 Average CPUE: Average CPUE: 3.5 0 0 1.653 0.572 1.25 3 2.4 0.75 2 2.667 0.5 0 0 0.33 0 0 1 0 0 0.75 1 1.333 1.25 3 2.4 0.7 0 0 0.8 0 0 0.6 0 0 4 1 0.25 2 0 0 3 1 0.333 4 1 0.25 4 1 0.25 3.25 20 6.154 0.33 6 18.18 1 8 8 1.8 25 13.89 2 70 35 3 26 8.667 6 9 1.5 5.3 9 1.698 0.8 7 8.75 0.5 8 16 2.5 14 5.6 0.25 5 20 2 20 10 2.5 2 0.8 2.5 8 3.2 0.2 0 0 2 7 3.5 0.5 4 8 2.3 30 13.04 1 10 10 0.1 2 20 0.25 12.5 50 0.05 2 40 2.84 2 0.704 1.5 40 26.67 2.3 8 3.478 2 15 7.5 3 28 9.333 3 31 10.33 1 0 0 Average CPUE: 5.893 Figure 1. Lake Mendota CPUE by Species and Depth Figure 2. Close-up of Lake Mendota CPUE by Species and Depth Figure 3. Monona Bay CPUE by Species and Depth Figure 4. Mud Lake CPUE by Species and Depth Figure 5. Bluegill Size Distributions Figure 6. Crappie Size Distributions Figure 7. Perch Size Distributions Figure 8. Frequency Distribution of CPUE for Lake Mendota Figure 9. Frequency Distribution of CPUE for Lake Wingra Figure 10. Frequency Distribution of CPUE for Monona Bay Figure 11. Frequency Distribution of CPUE for Mud Lake ...read more.

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