Use of Benthic Trawling to Supplement Electrofishing in Characterizing the Fish Community of the Allegheny River Navigation Channel in Pennsylvania, USA

Benthic trawling was compared to standard shoreline night electrofishing within two pools of the Allegheny River navigation system. The combined methods captured 53 fish species and two hybrids—42 species by electrofishing and 27 species by trawling. Although benthic trawling captured fewer species. it was very effective in sampling species of the family Percidae. The results verify that benthic trawling is an effective supplemental method for assessing the fish communities of large rivers where other standard sampling techniques may severely under-represent or fail to detect important and abundant benthic fishes.