Trout- Fishing in the Rangeley Lakes. 



37* 



house. In return for this privilege, they agreed to place in the 

 waters each season from 50,000 to 100,000 young fry, recompensing 

 themselves for their trouble, if they could, by taking out spawn for 

 use in other waters. In the seasons of 1873 and 1874, they were 

 able to deposit in the streams more than the maximum of spawn 

 agreed on. In 1875 and 1876, Mr. Stanley's duties as fish commis- 

 sioner prevented his giving this matter the necessary attention ; but 

 the young fry were so successfully hatched the first two seasons that 

 a sudden increase of small trout has been noted in the stream itself 

 and as far up as the Bema Ponds, four miles above the hatching- 

 houses. Some of the spawn were successfully transferred to other 

 waters, — the eggs had to be carried out in December, on the backs 

 of men, nine miles through the woods, — and Mr. B. B. Porter, the 

 pisciculturist of Crystal Springs, New Jersey, can now show Range- 

 ley trout double the size of any other variety of trout of the same age. 

 The method of capturing trout for their spawn was either to dip 

 them up near the springs with an ordinary net, as they came up to 

 deposit the spawn, or to take large trout in the lake, chiefly with the 

 fly, in advance of their ripening, and to "car" them until they were 

 stripped, when they were restored to the lake. At one time in the 

 fall of 1874, Messrs. Stanley and Hayford who were in charge of 



