196 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



subject to sudden and severe freshets may have not only the spawning beds ripped up 

 and destroyed, but the food of the fish may be washed out of the stream and will need 

 to be replaced artificially. 



Suckers are very destructi\'e of trout spawn, but after an examination of several 

 small Adirondack lakes, that are natural trout waters, but from which the trout have 

 become practically exterminated, I am of the opinion that bullheads are to be charged 

 with the destruction, more than any other one thing, man always excepted. Bullheads 

 have not, perhaps, the general reputation for destroying trout spawn that the sucker 

 enjoys, nevertheless they are one of the most destructive agents to be found in the 

 water where trout exist. 



In the lakes referred to I found that the bullhead fairly swarmed to the 

 exclusion of all other fish, except a few big trout. They had not only destroyed 

 the trout spawn, but had destroyed all the food of the trout, and were them- 

 selves dwarfed and starved until they were unfit for food. In other waters the bull- 

 heads would have been sought for food, and fishing would have kept them down, but 

 men, as a rule, do not go into the Adirondack Wilderness to catch bullheads, and con- 

 sequenth" all the fishing had been for trout, and the bullheads had multiplied 

 unmolested until they monopolized the water to the exclusion of everything else. In 

 one little lake the bullheads were like a solid carpet of fish suspended in the water 

 under the boat, and with a piece of meat tied to a string, about 2,000 were caught in 

 a few hours, as many as seven being lifted into the boat at one time. They were from 

 three to four inches long, and the largest taken was five and one-half inches long, too 

 small to pay for dressing, even had they been fat, which they were not. 



C^n the spawning beds of lake trout in New Hampshire, bullheads were found so 

 gorged with trout spawn that they were lying helpless on their sides, and one of the 

 commissioners who witnessed the sight told me that he was firmly of the opinion that 

 the gorging would have proved fatal to some of the bullheads if the hatchery men had 

 not anticipated such a result. 



In waters that do not contain brook trout the bullhead is a most desirable food fish, 

 and it grows to good size and is always in demand. The waters of the State furnish 

 about 200,000 pounds of bullheads annually, so far as returns have been obtained, 

 more than of any other fish except the shad. 



The bullhead is a prolific fish and broods its young, and in trout waters where it is 

 not sought as food it has onlj- to breed and multiply, barring such casualties as all fish 

 are subject to in a state of nature. 



In trout waters such as I have mentioned, where bullheads have driven the trout to 

 the wall, if fishermen would devote a little time to catching bullheads there would be 

 fewer to devour the spawn of trout and consume their food. There is another remedy 



