INTRODUCTION 



Golden Trout, native to the Kern River drainage of the 

 Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, is a fancy fish that 

 captured the hearts of many a man. Two such men. Col. Sherman 

 Stevens and his brother, transplanted 13 goldens from Mulkey 

 Creek, a tributary of the South Fork of the Kern River, to 

 Cottonwood Creek, California in 1876. The fish were carried in a 

 coffee pot across the Divide, a distance of 4 miles, because the 

 Stevens brothers were anxious that Cottonwood Creek be well 

 stocked for their use near their sawmill site. In 1981, E. H. 

 Edwards, a storekeeper at Lone Pine, California, and two friends 

 planted some of these Cottonwood Creek fish in Cottonwood lakes, 

 and by 1906 the lakes were described as being unusually well 

 stocked with goldens (Ellis and Bryant 1920). In 1917, a spawn- 

 ing station was established at Cottonwood lakes (Pister 1964) . 

 This site became the source of golden trout eggs. From 1928 to 

 1938, eggs were shipped to the National Fish Hatchery in Bozeman 

 (now the Fish Cultural Development Center). In 1939, an embargo 

 on golden trout eggs was imposed by the California Legislature 

 (McAfee 1966) . One documented batch of 600 eggs supposedly was 

 shipped to Montana in 1907 by the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries 

 (Brown 1971) before establishment of the spawning stations at 

 Cottonwood lakes. 



Distribution records of the first golden trout delivered to 

 Montana are vague and poorly documented. A search of state and 

 federal hatchery records, literature correspondence, interviews 

 and field examinations of expected golden trout habitats suggest 

 the following lineage of the destination of golden trout in 

 Montana. 



Table A. Eggs received from Cottonwood lakes, a. 1907-1938 



Year No. Eggs Rearing Station No. & Destination of Fish 



500 - Gallatin area 



9,000 - Gallatin N.F.^ 



21,000 - Glacier N.F. 

 9,000 - Gallatin N.F. 

 2,000+- Wind River area, 



Wyoming, Cook Lake 

 stock 



1930 50,000 Bozeman N.F.H. 25,000 - Scheduled for Mission 



Mt. lakes 

 Unkn. - Hidden, Lost Packer 



lakes, Bitterroot N.F. 



1931 50,000 Bozeman N.F.H. Unkn. - Upper & Lower Dutchman 



lakes 



