The Fish Community of Lake Ellis Simon, North Carolina

We sampled the fish community of 607-ha Lake Ellis Simon (Lake Ellis), North Carolina, from 1980 to 1983 with 6 types of gear. Several currently used fishery indices were calculated from the data and the values evaluated for classification of the fish community of Lake Ellis Simon. More of the 21 species recorded from the lake were taken by electrofishing and rotenone (18 and 17, respectively) than by the other methods. Electrofishing provided the largest catch per unit of effort. Standing crop estimates based on rotenone sampling were 51 kg/ha in 1981 and 78.7 kg/ha in 1983. About 91% of the biomass in the rotenone samples was contributed by 8 species: yellow bullhead (Ictalurus natalis), lake chubsucker (Erimyzon sucetta), yellow perch (Percaflavescens), bluespotted sunfish (Enneacanthus gloriosus), warmouth (Lepomis gulosus), chain pickerel (Esox niger), redfin pickerel (Esox americanus americanus), and largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides). Biomass of piscivorous fish species (primarily largemouth bass) represented 52.5% of the total. The F/C values of rotenone collections in 1981 and 1983 were 3.4 and 0.39 and Y/C values were 0.47 and 0.08. AP/P values of rotenone collections ranged from 1.2 to 20.1 in 1981 and from 0.5 to 12.1 in 1983. In the 1981 and 1983 rotenone collections 63.2% and 85.6% of the fish were classed as harvestable (A value). These and other indices (PSD, RSD15 , YAR and W,) reflected the relatively high predator biomass.

Publication date
Starting page
287
Ending page
296
ID
17252