A Fish Survey of the Pillsbury Crossing Area, Deep Creek, Riley County, Kansas

Abstract

Deep Creek is a small meandering tributary of the Kansas River southeast of Manhattan, Kansas. It flows through portions of Riley and Waubaunsee counties* and enters the Kansas River from the south. Several miles above its mouth it flows across a flat ledge of limestone in Sec. 5, T. 11S, R. 9E that forms a natural roadbed and has given the area the name of Pillsbury Crossing. The survey reported here was conducted between February 21 and April 27, 1956, on an area extending approximately 600 yards upstream and 300 yards downstream from Pillsbury Crossing. The objectives of this study were: to list the species of fish present in the stream and their relative abundance, to study some of the ecology of the species taken, to correlate the apparent movement of fish in relation to the advance of the season, and to test the availability of the different species of fish to different types of collection gear. Most of the drainage of Deep Creek is in grassed pastures. Limited observations of the headwater area resulted in an estimation that 70