FISHES AND FISHING IN SUNAPEE LAKE. 29 



for a spawning bed. The following day he captured a fine female in the creek, which 

 was full of eggs and quite ripe. Those which he saw in the creek he estimated would 

 weigh 8 to 10 pounds each. The one he caught weighed 8J pounds, and one which 

 he found up the creek a week later in shallow water, and which he picked up and 

 threw into deep water, he estimated would weigh 10 pounds. He informed me that a 

 month ago he saw a pair much larger than before mentioned, at the mouth of the 

 creek, but they could not get over the little bar formed at the mouth. lie estimated 

 this pair would weigh 20 pounds each, and that the female might go up to 25 pounds. 

 He also saw very decided indications of spawning nests in the gravel al)out the mouth 

 of the creek, all of which facts satisfy me that the salmon will not only attain a large 

 size but will also breed in fresh water. Unlike Brigham Young, they find they 

 can be very good Mormons and increase and multiply without going to a salt lake. 



Salmon were planted in Lake Ontario waters in 1879 and again in 

 1897 and 1898, but only one was ever reported. This fish, a ripe 

 female, weighing 14 pounds, caught September 1, 1900, was sent by 

 Livhigston Stone from Cape Vincent to the United States Fish 

 Commission. 



No more were reported from anywhere until 1903, when the State 

 Fish Commissioner of Mame wrote to the United States Fish Com- 

 missioner that qumnat salmon, some of which weighed as high as 16 

 pounds, were being caught m Pierce Pond, an affluent of the Kenne- 

 bec River, m Somerset County, Me. An investigation of the subject 

 revealed that the large fish supposed to be chmooks were landlocked 

 salmon. Two years later, however, small fish of 1 or H pounds in 

 weight, stated to have been caught in Pierce Pond, were sent to the 

 Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia and United States National 

 Museum, and proved to be cMnooks, but they were the result of 

 plants subsequent to the one supposed to have been the origin of the 

 alleged ''qumnats" of 1903. 



The first of this species to be planted in Sunapee Lake were 3,000 

 fingerhngs hatched at the Laconia station m 1904. Though there 

 are no definite records between 1904 and 1908, it has been stated 

 that some fry have been planted every year smce, and in the State 

 commissioners' report for 1907 and 1908 it is stated that the com- 

 missioners for the last four years have planted fingerlings and year- 

 lings of the Pacific salmon. There is also the indefinite record of 

 12,000 "salmon" fingerlings planted in Sunapee Lake in 1907. In 

 the United States Bureau of Fisheries report for 1904 it is recorded 

 that 100,000 eggs were sent to the Laconia station, and there are 

 consecutive records from 1908 to 1910, mclusive, while the writer has 

 been able to secure from the Division of Fish Culture, Bureau of 

 Fisheries, a statement of the number planted in 191 1. The pubhshed 

 records and this statement show the following plants: 1904, 3,000 

 fingerlmgs; 1908, 40,000 fingerhngs; 1909, 38,070 fingerhngs; 1910, 

 51,200 fingerlmgs; 1911, 24,370 fingerlmgs and fry; total, 156,640. 



Records of cliinoolc salmon cauglit in Sunapee Lake. — Tlie following 

 records are far from complete, but they represent all the positively 



