72 T]iirl;/-Firsf Annual 2Ieeting 



'Mr. T.vdcll: Ovir sniall-muutli ]jass I cannot see take a 

 thiiii!,- (luriiiy- tlic winter: tlu'v lie perfectly dormant, g'oing into 

 winter quarters as the pond commences to freeze np. "We com- 

 mence feeding the liver Jnst after the spawning, and continue 

 iliat imlil along in Septemher, and then they Avill be fed min- 

 nows until they go into winter quarters. When our fish went 

 into winter (juarters last year you could see minnows i]i abun- 

 dance, and they had all they wanted; and this spring when we 

 drew the ponds out we had to seine out thousands of them and 

 put them away until the spawning season was over. 



]\Ir. Peabody : I would like to ask a question on this sub- 

 ject : As I understand, trout fry, that has come down to a 

 comniei-cial Ijasis, and they are raised commercially and sold — 

 have you any idea how much it would cost commercially to raise 

 ])ass fry? 



Mr. Lydell: 1 don't know as I could state, except in one 

 instance, because it cost the commission fifteen great big bucks 

 to get 263,000 of them. (Laughter) If you have a pond that 

 is successful the cost is very .small, because there is nothing to 

 be done to your ponds in the winter, only to keep the water run- 

 ning. 



Mr. Henry T. Eoot, of Providence, E. I. : It is a fact that 

 in the eastern ponds small-mouth bass are not dormant during 

 the winter. Under natural conditions in a pond of 3,000 acres 

 they a IV not at all times dormant during the winter. We fre- 

 quently catch one or two or three in a day's fishing for pickerel. 

 On one occasion a l']-iend of mine caught over sixty through the 

 ice, and that shows that they do not at all times lie dormant 

 tliroughout the winter — that is, that they do feed, with us. 



.Mr. T.ydcll : I iicvcr liad such experience. 



Ml'. 'I'itconilc Did you see the fish? 



Mr. i\()ot : Xo, l)ul I know they were caught — no question 

 aljout that. 



Ml'- lA'dcll: Some men were hauled u]) before the court 

 a wliile ago for catching black bass, hy the ganu' warden. I 

 was out there; Mr. Palmer was there also. The trial was had 

 and they claimed thai those were sinall-niouth l)ass caught in 

 the winter, and the man got a new trial, and I came down and 

 found they were nothing but the laru'c-mouth bass. I have never 



