Wild female rainbow trout in the Little Pigeon mature on the average in 

 their third year (King 19l2) . The smallest ripening female examined during 

 the 1953 population studies was 8.7 inches long; mature males were frequently 

 younger and of much smaller size. The combination of increased fishing pres- 

 sure and the lack of minimum size restrictions during recent years has per- 

 mitted progressively fewer maiden fish to reach sexual maturity. 



During the period 191$ through 1952, not only was each year class of 

 rainbows exploited by fishermen in its second, third, and subsequent summers, 

 but many of the larger fingerlings were taken in their first summer. Rangers 

 and wardens in the Park have reported that creel limits of 10 Ii-inch to 5- 

 inch rainbows were commonly checked in those years. The heavy drain of 

 immature fish by anglers and the high over-winter mortality suffered by 

 stream trout, which is reported to be between 60 and 80 percent of the pop- 

 ulationsin some areas (Needham, Moffett and Slater 19U5; Allen 1952), tended 

 to preclude any but a small number of mature trout in these recent years. 

 In 1953, a 7-inch minimum size restriction on brook and rainbow trout was 

 made a part of the Park fishing regulations to afford additional protection 

 to young fish, yet a large percentage of the fish creeled on the Little 

 Pigeon were immature. Of the 2,875 wild and stocked rainbow trout registered 

 at the checking station, 65 percent were under 8.5 inches in length (table 3), 

 and most of the females were unquestionably immature. If the stocked trout 

 could have been excluded from this tabulation, the percentage of wild trout 

 under 8.5 inches caught and recorded would be considerably greater. 



The data on the size distribution of 393 rainbows collected with cresol 

 in the open and closed waters of the Little Pigeon were compared, and they 

 show that U7 oercent of the 201 trout collected in closed waters and Ih. per- 

 cent of the 192 rainbows captured in open waters were included in the 2„0- 

 U. 9-inch size range (table 8). Rainbows of this size were mostly young 

 of the year (fig. 2). Both groups of fish were subject to natural mortality 

 and some poaching; the fish in the closed waters may have been reduced in 

 numbers by some emigration downstream and out of the Wilderness Area; the 

 trout in open waters were subjected to some hooking and handling losses 

 since bait fishing was allowed and fishermen were permitted by regulations 

 to retain as a part of their creel limit those sublegal fish which were 

 badly injured in catching. The size group from 5.0 to 6.9 inches included 

 21 percent of the Wildnerness Area fish and 15 percent of the open-witer 

 fish; of these, most were in their second year of growth. Rainbows of this 

 age in open waters were subjected to some harvest in their first summer 

 (1952), when no size restrictions were in effect; additional losses to 

 anglers occurred in their second summer (1953) because of the retention 

 loophole in the new minimum size law; a part of the second-year fish reached 

 legal size and were caught out. 



Fishing quality in the Little Pigeon watershed in 195U will continue 

 to show the effects of the close cropping which took place on t he streams 

 from 19U8 through 1952 when fishing regulations were liberal. The 1952 

 year class of rainbows should consist entirely of legal size fish in 195k 



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