126 EEPORT OF ONTAEIO GAME Xo. 52 



Superior, where the trout sometimes run to a weight of several pounds 

 and where, consequently, ten pounds of trout might under favorable 

 conditions be quickly secured, would there appear to be any possible 

 argument in favor of interpreting the present law other than in its ap- 

 parently literal sense, or of amending it, and even there the bulk of 

 the country is so wild that the numbers of anglers who penetrate into 

 it are comparatively limited, so that there is but a limited capacity for 

 the consumption of the fish, while, on the other hand, where trout is 

 required for food purposes, it would be, and actually is, taken without 

 consideration of the restrictions imposed by law. In certain portions 

 of this region, where there was adequate supervision, it might perhaps 

 be advantageous to amend the law as suggested for black bass, but 

 where adequate supervision in this region cannot be provided and 

 throughout the remaining portions of the Province it would appear best 

 in regard to brook trout fishing that the present regulations as to the 

 weight and numbers of fish that may be caught should remain in force 

 and be construed in their most literal sense. 



In the matter of returning all brook trout of less than six inches 

 in length to the water, much the same arguments could obviously be 

 advanced as in the case of the black bass. The problem is not, however, 

 entirely analogous. While undoubtedly in some little streams where 

 brook trout exist the fish will mature at six inches, in the bulk of the 

 brook trout waters of the Province it will attain a considerably larger 

 size. In those streams where it runs smallest the very size of the fish 

 will preclude offering it bait other than on a very small hook, while in 

 other waters where larger trout exist, although it maj fall a victim to 

 the fly in ordinary local use, a trout of less than six inches Avill, as a 

 rule, refrain from attempting to swallow such bait as spoons and imi- 

 tation minnows, the coarse hooks of which frequentl^'^ cause such serious 

 injury to the fish, for the very appearance and size of the lure, re- 

 sembling, in fact, that of some swimming fish, would be calculated to 

 drive the young trout into shelter, seeing that the larger specimens of 

 even its own tribe would most gladly devour it, with which fact it is 

 instinctively well acquainted. Consequently, the bulk of the fish below 

 legal limit that would be caught would be landed by a small hook lodged 

 in the tough membrane of the mouth in all probability, and not, as in 

 the case of the young bass, hj impaling themselves more or less severely 

 on the barbs of larger hooks, for the bass of between eight and ten 

 inches can plainly, and will, tackle a very much larger bait than ever 

 could a little trout of between four to six inches. It would seem, there- 

 fore, that a higher percentage of the young trout caught than of young 

 bass should be landed uninjured, and taking all things into considera- 

 tion, in the case where all the undersized of both varieties had to be 

 returned to the water regardless of whether they were injured or not, a 

 higher percentage should, also, live. In addition to this the very nature 

 of the waters in which young trout are usually most abundant render 



