90 



Tzvcnty-sixth Annual Meeting 



I was stationed for some months, and while it worked verv suc- 

 cessfully, there was great annoyance in connection with the catch- 

 ing of the fish that I don't think you referred to— if you did, I 

 (lid nut hear you — and that is the streams running down through 

 dense woods along about the time of the year when the fish 

 were spawning, were covered with innuense quantities of leaves, 

 and we had C(>ntinuous trou])le to keep tlie rack free, and some- 

 times there were periods when two men would be kept con- 

 stantly busy at the screens, and it occurred to me to ask you 

 you managed to obviate that difficulty, if you experienced it. 



Mr. Titcomb: I did not carry that point far enough in my 

 paper, Mr. President I spoke of having a shanty and bunk, 

 where a man could sleep. He was isolated in the woods, and at 

 the end of sixty-six days he wrote for leave of absence to go 

 home and visit his family. He kept a rake there and raked ofif 

 those leaves, and one night he took i,6oo trout in that trap, and 

 he was dipping as fast as he could dip. He was an old fisher- 

 man, one of those old hardy fishermen that always know where 

 the big trout are in a stream. He was out there alone, and he 

 wrote me a long letter, stating how the stream came up, and he 

 woke up in the night and the water was flowing all around his 

 shanty, and he didn't know whether to stay or run, and then he 

 found if he ran he had to wade through a stream up to his waist, 

 and he stayed anil dipped until midnight. 



Mr. Bower: That was on account of the leaves? 



Mr. Titcomb: No, sir, that was on account of the pressure. 

 The water was high. The weir takes up four-fifths of the brook, 

 and the opening is not sufficient in case of such a rise. That 

 trap method 1 did not pretend to originate at all. It is simply 

 a method of fish culture which it seemed to me had not been 

 written up, and 1 wrote it up for that purpose. The method of 

 dipping them oft' the l)eds is one which 1 originated; 1 may not 

 have originated it, of course the Indians used to dip in olden 

 times, but for m\- work it was original with me. 



Mr. Bryant: lliose trajjs were first used in Maine bv Mr. 

 Atkins. 



Mr. Titcomb: Yes, I corresponded with him al)out it. 



Mr. Dickerson: Are all yom- lakes stocked with brook trout? 

 Do they grow in all your lakes? 



