Michigan Department of Conservation
Research and Development Report No. 74
Institute for Fisheries Research Report No. 1726, 1966
The Michigan General Creel Census for 1963
K. G. Fukano
The Michigan General Creel Census has been conducted by conservation officers since 1927 as a part of their regular duties (1963 was the thirty-seventh consecutive year). The object of the census is to obtain a sample of the sport fishing in all part of the state. Creel records from special research projects of the Research and Development Division are not included.
During 1963 the officers obtained records for 63,047 angler trips, divided into three major categories—trout, nontrout, and Great Lakes waters; each category was further subdivided into lakes and streams. It is believed that this division of the data gives the best available indication of the fishing quality in the different types of waters administered by the state. The number of anglers interviewed from different types of waters were as follows: (1) trout waters, 7,557 (12% of all anglers contacted), of whom 1,893 fished in designated trout lakes and special trout ponds and 5,664 fished in streams; (2) nontrout waters, 49,696 (79%), of whom 44,346 fished in lakes and 5,350 fished in streams; (3) Great Lakes waters, 5,794 (9%), of whom 3,380 fished in Great Lakes and 2,414 fished in connecting waters.
Of the 63,047 anglers interviewed, 7,873 (12%) were non-residents; 9,729 (15%) were women.
Officers contacted anglers either while an angler was fishing or at the end of a fishing trip. Thus, this census is a partial rather than a complete record for these fishing trips. Only legal-size fish caught by sport fishermen were considered. In this report the various types of waters are grouped by Conservation Department Regions.