TWENTY-SEVENTH BIENNIAL REPORT. 



33 



date, be furnished with funds to establish several pond systems where 

 fish can be reared in numbers great enough to furnish an adequate sup- 

 ply of eggs for all the hatcheries. One of the best pond systems to be 

 found anywhere, is located at the Mount Shasta station, but it is not 

 large enough and owing to the limited water supply, can not be 

 increased. Nearly one-third of the trout eggs collected in California 

 this year were taken from the stock fish in the ponds at ]\lount Shasta 

 Hatchery. The eggs can be procured from the ponds for less money 

 than they can be taken from wild fish when all the uncertainties con- 

 nected with collecting eggs from wild fish are considered. The droughts 

 and floods, deep snows, extremely cold weather and other conditions 



Fig. 7. Catch of trout from Lake Eleanor, part of the San Francisco Hetch Hetchy 

 project. Many of the new storage reservoirs in the mountain districts are afford- 

 ing- splendid fishing. 



always make the work at the egg collecting station uncertain. We do not 

 know from one season to another what to expect. Some years the 

 extremely light rain or snowfall causes conditions that arc unfavorable 

 for the collection of trout eggs. In other years, floods and extremely 

 high and cold water change the movements of the fish so that our take 

 of eggs is often far less than that expected. The breaking up of the 

 runs of trout in our streams by higli dams, Imilt by liydro-electrie com- 

 panies and irrigation projects are all having their effect and to meet 

 these new conditions, it is imperative that the Legislature provide ample 

 funds for the construction of rearing ponds where a suffici(Mit number 

 of breeding fi.sh can be raised to supply the demand foi- at Irast two- 

 thirds of the waters to be stocked. 



3—2-2631 



