BROOK TROUT. 



Saltno fontinalis. 



THIS well - known and greatly 

 prized game fish is found be- 

 tween the parallels of latitude 

 50 degrees north and 36 degrees 

 south, though in Labrador, in latitude 

 54 degrees, and in the Appalachian 

 mountain ranges as far south as the 

 northern border of Georgia and South 

 Carolina, it has been taken in abun- 

 dance. Northwestern Minnesota is its 

 northern limit, and it is only occasion- 

 ally caught west of the Mississippi 

 River, except in a few of its tributaries. 

 Specimens weighing seventeen pounds 

 have been taken, the largest being 

 found in the Nipigon River, in Ontario, 

 and on the north shore of Lake Supe- 

 rior, where the seventeen-pound spec- 

 imen referred to was caught. It is 

 found in the large lakes and in the 

 smallest ponds, the tiniest brooks and 

 the largest rivers. The Nipigon River 

 is forty-five miles in length and has a 

 depth, in places, of from one hundred 

 to two hundred feet. 



Although a bold biter, the brook 

 trout is wary, and usually requires all 

 the skill of an experienced fisherman 

 to capture it. The bait commonly 

 used to entice it to bite is artificial or 

 natural flies, minnows, crickets, grubs, 

 grasshoppers, fish spawn, or the eyes 

 or cut pieces of other trout. Its period 

 of spawning is from September to the 

 last of November, and it begins to re- 

 produce its kind when about two years 

 of age, when it measures some six 

 inches in length. In the early summer 

 the trout sports in rapids and swiftly 

 running water, and in midsummer finds 

 a retreat in deep, cool, and shaded 

 pools. In August and September the 

 females gather about the mouths of 

 gravelly brooks, whither they resort to 

 make their spawning beds. 



With age the habits of the trout 

 change. When young they associate 

 in schools and play together constantly. 



usually choosing parts of the brook 

 where the bottom is muddy, in which, 

 if startled suddenly, they bury them- 

 selves for safety. This does not often 

 occur, however, as they prefer any lit- 

 tle projection that juts out over the 

 water where they can hide until the 

 danger is past. As they grow older 

 they separate, and each one chooses 

 his own particular hiding place, the 

 larger trout taking the deepest holes 

 and largest projections and leaving the 

 smaller relations to shift for them- 

 selves. The older they grow the wiser 

 and more wary they become, hence the 

 necessity of considerable skill to land 

 a wary old trout. Angle-worms are 

 considered the best bait for trout, but 

 in the spring, after the usual freshets, 

 which wash vast numbers of worms and 

 insects into the water, they bite better 

 at the more tempting bait of a fly. 



Practice alone will enable one to 

 catch this wary beauty. One must 

 know not only how to catch it but 

 where to find it, and some knowledge 

 of entomology is essential at the very 

 beginning. It is desirable to have 

 some acquaintance with the insects that 

 live in the water, under the water, and 

 over the water, and whose habits in 

 great part influence the movements of 

 the fish. 



Miss Sara J. McBride, an accom- 

 plished naturalist of Mumford, New 

 York, in an essay published some 

 years ago in the Forest atid Stream, 

 taught the lesson of entomology we 

 have referred to, as applied to the an- 

 gler's purposes, in the following words: 



"There is a large order of insects 

 that live the first stages of life in water, 

 where for weeks, months, in some in- 

 stances years, they hide under stones; 

 carve an abiding-place in submerged 

 driftwood; feed on decaying vegetation 

 in lazy, inert masses; burrow in the earth 

 beneath the current; weave together 



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