L. A. Helfrich

Representing the land grant institutions, extension fisheries and wildlife specialists contribute to management of fish and wildlife resources through education. In a telephone survey, 17 state specialists ranked their audiences by time spent working with each and ranked 10 communication methods by frequency of use in reaching each audience. In order of priority, the audiences served were extension agents, commercial interests, private landowners, youth, general public, faculty and students, natural resource agencies, and conservation organizations. The most frequently used communication...

Six cages (1 m3 each) suspended in a Virginia pond were each stocked with 100 channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) fingerlings (127 mm TL, average) to evaluate 2 commercial fish feeds, each replicated 3 times. Both commercial diets were nutritionally complete and expanded 4-mm diameter pellets of comparable texture, color, and water stability. The daily feeding rate was 3% of biomass during the 124-day feeding period. Growth, net production, and feed utilization efficiencies with commercial trout feed were significantly greater than with commercial catfish cage feed. Survival was not...

A system for program development and evaluation of fisheries and wildlife extension programs is presented. The system based on the character and needs of potential audiences. Landowners, commercial interests, general public, youth groups and conservation organizations are considered the important citizen audiences. Significant professional audiences include university colleagues, natural resource agency professionals, and university students. For each audience, a rationale for involvement and suggestions for the nature and extent of program development is provided.

Dispersion patterns of 578 tagged rainbow trout stocked into pool and riffle habitats of Big Stony Creek, Giles County, Virginia, were determined from voluntary tag returns and a creel census of fishermen during the 1979-80 trout fishing season. Twentytwo percent of the trout remained within the original 30 m stocking location; 45 percent of the trout moved downstream whilc 33 percent moved upstream. The median dispersion distance and direction for aU trout that moved beyond tbe initial release sites was 30 m downstream. The majority (75%) of the marked fish were caught within 400 m of the...

Creel census data for 3 catchable trout fisheries in Virginia revealed that desirable attributes of the fisheries increased from a lightly-stocked stream to a lightlystocked lake to a heavily-stocked stream. Total effort, participation by non-local anglers, evenness of seasonal use, catch rate, and return rate all were higher for the heavilystocked stream than for the lightly-stocked stream. For the trout lake, total effort and participation by non-local anglers were similar to the heavily-stocked stream, but catch per effort, return rates of stocked fish, and seasonal distribution of...