OPERATIONS IN CALIFORNIA IN 1873. 381 



This is the best month for catching shapanlle. Perch, shapaulle, hitch, 

 and chy are caught in the lake with hook and line this month. Black- 

 fish are abundant. 



May. — The first of May is about the best time for catching perch. In 

 respect to the other fish, this month is very much like the last. 



June. — The larger part of the fish which have gone up the creeks in 

 such vast numbers have returned to the lake by this time. They have 

 also left the sand-beaches and tules where they have been spawn- 

 ing, and have returned to deep water. Most kinds of the Clear Lake 

 fish can be caught in the lake during this month with hook and line j 

 more perch being caught, however, than any other species. The Indians 

 go this month to the cold feeding-springs of the lake to catch trout with 

 the nets. 



July. — This mouth does not differ much from the last in respect to 

 the fishing ; but the water during this month becomes warm, and the 

 fish get soft, and are not good. 



August. — The lake is not fished much this month, the water being warm 

 and the fish soft and inferior. The Indians, however, continue to fish 

 for trout around the cold springs which feed the lake. There is one spring 

 in particular fished by the Indians, two miles east of Morgan Young's, 

 which is forty feet in diameter, and which boils up so that one cannot row 

 a boat across it. This spring would make a small river if confined. It 

 is thought that it furnishes the chief water-supply of the lake in the 

 summer. It is, of course, cold all the year round. 



A great number of dead black-fish are seen about the lake this month, 

 and some dead perch and roach around the shores and among the tules, 

 which, in many parts of the lake, line the edges densely to a depth of 

 twenty or thirty feet. 



September. — Fish and fishing are about the same as in August. The 

 weather is a little warmer. No one fishes during this month except the 

 Indians, who still keep after the trout. The water this month is in its 

 worst condition. It is full of the frothy product of the soda-springs. 

 A green scum covers a large part of the surface, and it is not only 

 uncleanly to look at, but unfit to drink ; and yet, strangely enough, this 

 lake, which oue would think uninhabitable by fish, fairly teems and 

 swarms with them. 



October. — In October the water begins to cool a little, but as yet there 

 have been no rains, and there is no other improvement in the water 

 except the cooling of it. There is no more fishing done this month than 

 in September. 



November. — The water is colder this month. The wind and rain clear 

 off the stagnant scum which collects on the surface in the summer. 

 The fish are better, but there is no fishing done. 



December. — The lake is clear again on the surface, and begins to rise 

 with the rains. The water continues to grow cooler, and the fish im- 

 prove 5 but there is no fishing of any consequence done before the new 

 year. 



