[7] TROUT FISHERIES ON THE M’CLOUD RIVER, CAL. 621 
tin cans which turpentine, alcohol, and other liquids come in. We save 
all these cans for this purpose and rig them with a bail and a lid, and find 
them very convenient and safe to carry the trout in, as well as economical. 
We have had one set of lines, twenty in number, extending at inter- 
vals over nearly four miles of the river, which makes it quite important 
to have a system of convenient temporary corrals to confine the fish in 
when they are first caught. We fish somewhat with a rod, but not to 
any great extent. ; 
The trout fishing lasts from the middle of May till the last of Novem- 
ber, June and July being the best months for fishing. Indeed the trout 
bite very well till the salmon begin to spawn in August, when, till the 
salmon-spawning season is over, the trout fishing is very poor. In the 
very hot weather the trout feed mostly at night. 
During the spawning season the wild trout in the river sometimes run 
up the tributary creeks in great numbers when they are swollen by the 
rains. Taking advantage of this peculiarity of theirs we have taken 
them in traps placed in the creeks, but the more experience we have of 
this method of getting breeders and eggs the less we like it, and shall 
probably not rely much upon it in future. 
Owing to the powerful current in the river, which indeed is a succes- 
sion of cascades and rapids, great inconvenience has been experienced in 
using the heavy wooden boats which we have at present. I therefore 
sent for one of Osgood’s patent-folding canvass boats this summer for 
tending the lines with. This boat is extremely light and can be easily 
carried by the rapids and falls in ascending and descending the river, 
and saves a vast deal of time and severe labor. With this boat we were 
enabled to extend our fishing this fall more than ten miles above the 
trout ponds. 
The fishing this fall was conducted with so much success that we were 
enabled to nearly double the number of breeders in the ponds, and next 
year (1881) we hope to take half a million eggs. 
In concluding, I will say that we now have at the United States trout- 
breeding station, on the McCloud River, a large and commodious dwell- 
ing-house and stable, a hatching-house, with a hatching capacity of sev- 
eral million trout eggs, four large and very substantial ponds, and over 
two thousand breeding trout, averaging three pounds in weight. 
