The earliest records of fishes from the Big Blue River Basin are those of Cragin (1885) and Graham (1885) in independently published lists of the fishes of Kansas. Meek (1895) recorded fishes collected in 1891 "from both branches of the Blue River, a few miles west of Crete, Nebraska." Evermann and Cox (1896) reported five collections from the Nebraskan part of the basin. Their collections were made in October, 1892, and August, 1893, and the stations were: in 1892, Big Blue River at Crete; in 1893, Big Blue River at Seward, Lincoln Creek at Seward and York, and Beaver Creek at York.
Canfield and Wiebe (1931) obtained fish from 18 localities in Nebraska in July, 1930; however, their major concern was determination of water quality. Their stations were: Big Blue River at Stromsburg, Polk Co.; Surprise and Ulysses, Butler Co.; Staplehurst, Seward, and Milford, Seward Co.; Crete and Wilber, Saline Co.; Beatrice, Blue Springs, and Barnston, Gage Co.; Little Blue River at Fairbury, Jefferson Co.; Hebron, Thayer Co.; Sandy Creek at Alexandria, Thayer Co.; West Fork of Big Blue River at Stockham, Hamilton Co.; McCool Junction, York Co.; Beaver Crossing, Seward Co.; and Beaver Creek at York, York Co.
Breukelman (1940) and Jennings (1942) listed fishes from the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History and the Kansas State College Museum, respectively, including some specimens collected from the Big Blue River System in Kansas. Because records in these two papers pertain to collections that were widely spaced in the basin and in time, the specific localities are not given herein. One of Jennings' (loc. cit.) records, Scaphirhynchus platorynchus (Rafinesque), was cited by Bailey and Cross (1954:191). More recently, Minckley and Cross (in press) recorded several localities, and cited some papers mentioned above, in a publication dealing with Notropis topeka (Gilbert) in Kansas.
Information on the fishes of the Nebraskan portion of the Big Blue River Basin was compiled, and additional localities were reported, in a doctoral thesis by Dr. Raymond E. Johnson, entitled The Distribution of Nebraska Fishes, 1942, at the University of Michigan.
METHODS AND MATERIALS
Collection of Fishes
The gear and techniques used are listed below:
Entrapment Devices.—Hoop and fyke nets and wire traps were used for 288 trap/net hours in 1957. The nets were not baited, and were set parallel to the current, with the mouths downstream. Hoop nets were 1½ to three feet in diameter at the first hoop, with a pot-mesh of one inch; fyke nets were three feet at the first hoop, pot-mesh of one inch; wire traps, with an opening at each end, were 2½ feet in diameter and covered with one-inch-mesh, galvanized chicken wire.
Gill Nets.—Experimental gill nets were set on three occasions in areas with little current. These nets were 125 feet in length, with ¾ to two inch bar-mesh in 25-foot sections.
Seines.—Seining was used more than other methods. An attempt was made to seine all habitats at each station. In swift water, seine-hauls were usually made downstream, but in quiet areas seining was done randomly. Haul-seines six to 60 feet in length, three to eight feet in depth, and with meshes of ⅛ to ½ inch were used. For collection of riffle-fishes, the seine was planted below a selected area and the bottom was kicked violently by one member of the party, while one or two persons held the seine, raising it when the area had been thoroughly disturbed. Seining on riffles was done with a four-foot by four-foot bobbinet seine.