WHITEFISH AREAS IN THE GREAT LAKES

The accompanying maps of whitefish areas in the Great lakes are reproduced from an article by Paul Reighard, of the University of Michigan, on "A Plan for Promoting the Whitefish Production of the Great Lakes. In explanation of the maps the author makes the following statements:

"In the accompanying maps we have attempted to indicate the extent of the whitefish areas for each of the Great Lakes. These are the areas within which the fishermen find the whitefish when carrying on commercial fishing operations at other times than during the fall and spring migrations. They are the areas over which it is, or has been, profitable to fish and outside of which the whitefish is found in relatively small numbers. The maps have been made by tracing the appropriate fathom lines on the United States engineer charts of the Great Lakes. They are sufficiently explained in the legends attached to them. In the following table we have given the whitefish areas for each of the Great Lakes together with the extent in square miles of the lakes themselves. These whitefish areas have been obtained by measuring with a planimeter the areas plotted on the maps. The lake areas are taken from H. M. Smith, 1894.

AREA OF EACH OF THE GREAT LAKES, WHITEFISH AREA OF EACH, AND PERCENTAGE OF WHITEFISH AREA

area.

"It is to be noted that the area occupied by the true whitefish is relatively least in Lake Michigan, where it forms but 12 per cent. of the lake Lake Erie comes next with a whitefish area 14 per cent. of its total area, if the eastern part of the lake only is taken, but if the western platform of Lake Erie be included over depths of 12 to 30 fathoms, its white

(a) Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Fisheries, Vol. XXVIII, p. 645.

(Reproduced from "Plans for promoting the Whitefish Production of the Great Lakes", in Bull. XXVIII. U. S. Bureau of Fisheries

(Reproduced from "Plans for promoting the Whitefish Production of the Great Lakes", in Bull. XXVIII. U. S. Bureau of Fisheries