Fish Community and Fishery of Peavy Pond, Iron County, Michigan with Emphasis on Walleye and Northern Pike

摘要

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Fisheries Division surveyed fish populations and angler catch and effort at Peavy Pond, Iron County, Michigan from April 2004 through February 2005. This work was part of the Large Lakes Program, which is designed to improve assessment and monitoring of fish communities and fisheries in Michigans largest inland lakes. The Large Lakes Program has three primary objectives. The first objective is to produce consistent indices of abundance and estimates of annual harvest and fishing effort for walleye Sander vitreus, northern pike Esox lucius, smallmouth bass Micropterus dolomieui, and muskellunge Esox masquinongy. Since these species support valuable fisheries, the second goal is to produce growth and mortality statistics to evaluate the effects of fishing on these species. This usually involves targeted sampling to collect, sample, and mark sufficient numbers of fish. The third goal is to evaluate the suitability of various statistical estimators for use in large lakes. For example, comparisons were made among four types of abundance and three types of exploitation rate estimators in this survey of Peavy Pond. The Large Lakes Program will maintain consistent sampling methods over lakes and time, which will allow the evaluation of differences in fish population and harvest statistics among lakes or changes within a lake over time.