BIODIVERSITY FISHES AQUARIUM DE QUÉBEC-SÉPAQ DATA INFORMATION

Stations and fishing gear

From 1944 until the beginning of the experimental activities in 1961, daily catches were recorded at Arthur Matte’s weir fishing site in Neuville (about 30 km upstream of the Aquarium) and were carefully archived at the Aquarium du Québec. Since 1961, the experimental fishery has been located at four different sites (Robitaille et al., 1987):

1. on the south shore of St. Lawrence River, less than 500 m downstream from the mouth of Chaudière River (1961–1962);
2. on the north shore, close to the Aquarium du Québec (1963–1969);
3. on the north shore, about 100 m upstream of Pierre Laporte bridge (1970);
4. on the south shore at Saint-Nicolas, 100 m upstream of Pierre Laporte bridge (1971–today).

Different types of weir fisheries were used during two distinct periods of activities between 1944 and 2014:

1. 1944 to 1970;
2. 1971 up to now.

A detailed description of the fishing gear used between 1944 and 1970 is not available. However, the traditional weir fishing gear used by fishermen of that period was described by Dr. Vadim D. Vladykov and detailed in publications by Bergeron et al. (1972) and Robitaille et al. (1987). It is therefore very likely that the gear used by the Aquarium du Québec and those of the commercial fishermen were similar. The traditional weir fishing gear consisted of a slightly smaller box trap than the one used starting in 1971, with one-inch hexagonal steel mesh and only one upstream wing net.

In 1971, as part of a program to improve traditional fishing gear, an experimental trap was built and achieved catches three to six times higher than those obtained by the traditional gear (Bergeron et al., 1972; Bergeron et al., 1973; Bergeron and Johnson, 1974; Johnson and Bergeron, 1975). Apart from the addition of wing nets in 1973–1974 and the removal of a wing net in 2016, the gear was unchanged up to now. It has been repaired many times or completely rebuilt when damaged, but always following the same design and without causing any noticeable differences in potential catchability (Bernier et al., 1996; de Lafontaine et al., 2010).