COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 13 



trout fishermen if asked, would, without hestitation, say that there 

 has been no benefit and that there are fewer and smaller trout in our 

 streams to-day than there were twenty or more years ago. The lat- 

 ter assertion would be right, but let us compare certain conditions 

 of to-day with those of the past, before passing judgment. 



Twenty years ago, any of the few trout fishermen could go on his 

 favorite trout stream every day for a week and would not meet a 

 single fisherman or see any evidence that others had been there, and 

 the result of a day 's fishing would be a good catch of fair-sized fish 

 and some large ones. But to-day, on the same stream, he would 

 find a well-beaten path along the brook, and from one to a dozen 

 people fishing. On one occasion seven or eight years ago, while 

 strolling along a certain stream, I counted fourteen people fishing 

 on less than a mile of brook. Yet this was on a stream which a few 

 years before I had practically to myself. And here is where I wished 

 to make the first and probably the most important comparison, 

 which is this: that for every trout fisherman of twenty years ago, 

 there are to-day over one hundred. 



Coupled with this is another fact that the fishermen are not as 

 particular as to the size of the fish as formerly, for to a great many 

 it is numbers and not size that counts. As every trout fisherman 

 knows, a small trout (under seven inches in length) is always hungry, 

 and is, I think, the easiest of fish to catch; so that during the open 

 season about all the small trout will be hooked. Of course a few of 

 them will be returned to the water uninjured. But others that are 

 liberated have been hooked so badly that they die or, if not injured 

 by the hook, have been handled so carelessly that they do not survive. 

 Thus it would seem that were there no other reason, except the greatly 

 increased number of fishermen, few of the yearling trout placed each 

 fall in the brooks by your Commission would reach the age of two 

 years or become mature fish. 



But there are other and equally fatal conditions to be faced by the 

 small trout which have been lucky enough to live until the 15th of 

 July, when the fishermen cease to be a menace because of the closed 



