216 American Fisheries Society 



now secure eggs from wild trout. Last season we got 

 one hundred wild male fish and impregnated 125,000 eggs 

 at our Bayfield hatchery, and the result has been mar- 

 vellous in the production of strong, healthy fry, there being 

 no weak fish or fry with blue sacs among them. Every 

 fish culturist knows that fry with blue sacs are doomed 

 to die. We have kept separate the one hundred male 

 fish obtained last year, and will watch the results this 

 season. We are in hopes of getting a much larger num- 

 ber of wild male trout for use at spawning time this fall. 

 Should anyone in the business having a number of soft 

 eggs when taken, let them remain in the milt in the vessel 

 in which taken, and set it in cold running spring water for an 

 hour or more, or until the eggs get hard before putting 

 them on the trays, results will be very beneficial. 



At one of our hatcheries it is difficult to carry a large 

 percentage of brook trout fry until they begin to feed, con- 

 sequently for a number of years we have been sending 

 the eggs to other stations to hatch and distribute. The 

 resulting fry were always stronger and there were fewer 

 losses than among those of the home product. After the 

 fry from the eggs thus transferred began to feed when 

 about six weeks old, some were returned to the parent 

 hatchery without serious loss thereafter. This shows 

 that there is something in the water that affects the fry 

 from the time they are hatched until the sac is absorbed 

 and feeding begins. If the eggs had remained at their 

 home station we would not have raised twenty per cent 

 of the fry to the age of two months. 



As to rainbow trout, I think we keep a larger stock 

 of breeders and take more eggs than any of the middle 

 or eastern states. We do not have the trouble in raising 

 them that we do with brook trout in the same waters 

 where we hatch and distribute millions of fry. These fish 

 have been bred from the same stock for the past forty 



