AUTHORS: Samantha A. Embersits, Wisconsin Cooperative Fishery Research Unit; Daniel A. Isermann, U.S. Geological Survey, Wisconsin Cooperative Fishery Research Unit; Daniel J. Dembkowski, Wisconsin Cooperative Fishery Research Unit; Michael Donofrio, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources; Joshua Schulze, Wisconsin Cooperative Fishery Research Unit
ABSTRACT: The Menominee River supports high-quality fisheries for smallmouth bass that attract anglers from all over North America and the rising popularity of these fisheries has led to increased fishing effort. Hydropower facilities divide the Menominee River into a series of relatively riverine impoundments that, in addition to naturally occurring features (i.e., falls or rapids), prevent or limit the upstream movement of fish. Our goal was to use electrofishing-based population assessments to determine if smallmouth bass population characteristics vary among impoundments of the Menominee River and determine if current harvest regulations are sufficient to maintain the quality of these fisheries. Dorsal spines were collected from 10 fish per 25 mm TL interval to develop age-length keys used to estimate age structure, growth, proportional size distributions (PSD), and mortality within each river section. Dynamic pool models created in the Fishery Analysis and Modeling Simulator (FAMS) were used to examine how size structure may be affected by increased exploitation or changes to minimum length limits. Our results indicate that growth, natural mortality, and angler exploitation rates of smallmouth bass are similar among the three segments of the Menominee River included in our assessment. Furthermore, current exploitation rates of smallmouth bass in these segments of the Menominee River are likely universally low (
