REPORT OF STATE BOARD OF FISH COMMISSIONERS. 19 



In Meek's Creek the trout had been running some time before we put 

 in our traps, and Chinamen had been catching them by torchlight, so 

 the fishermen said. The run dwindled down very fast and we caught 

 but few trout, but the traps Avere full of suckers. 



In Phipps' Creek, which is later than Meek's, the trout had not begun 

 to run when the traps were set; the water was very low. We caught 

 here but very few fish during the season. Trout used to run up this 

 stream in large numbers, but a trap had been kept here for years past 

 to catch the fish, principally for the market, and I could not learn if 

 any young trout had been planted in the stream to restock it in place 

 of those which had been prevented from going up to spawn. 



The next creek, Blackwood, is a larger and later stream for trout; in 

 this creek we caught the greater bulk of our eggs. We had to continue 

 trapping in this creek a long time — into August, in fact — when the water 

 became very low. 



In Ward Creek but very few trout were caught. 



We also seined at the Incline in Nevada, by permission of Fish 

 Commissioner Mills. Here formerly trout used to be caught in great 

 numbers by the same fishermen who worked this season for us. This 

 year, however, but few fish could be seined, while cart loads of sawdust 

 were drawn in by the seine. The two streams which empty into the 

 lake at this place were very low. 



We took this season, 1889, about one million two hundred thousand 

 eggs. It was expensive to keep the traps in for so long a time with men 

 to attend them. Spawn taking had been continued through three 

 months, while in an ordinary season, and to get two million five hun- 

 dred thousand eggs, it was expected that the work of spawning would 

 be done in six weeks. The cause given why so few fish could be caught 

 was that it had been an open winter around the lake, scarcely any snow 

 had fallen, and the water consequently in all the streams was very low. 

 It is the melting of the deep snows in the mountains that cause the 

 streams around Lake Tahoe to rise in April, May, and June. All the traps 

 and seining grounds were at distant points from the hatchery. The 

 eggs had to be brought around the lake on the steamer or in rowboats. 



In the first part of this report mention is made of the old private 

 hatchery, where the Commission was having trout hatched, of its inade- 

 quate qualities, of the insufficiency of water for hatching purposes, and 

 the insecurity of supplying pipes. It seemed necessary that the Fish 

 Commission of this State should have a hatchery of its own, sufficiently 

 large to take care of fifteen hundred thousand trout, with a good supply 

 of cold spring water. 



A State hatchery at Lake Tahoe would be the most central, as a point 

 of distribution, for the great Tahoe, Donner, Independence, and Webber 

 Lakes, as well as the Truckee River and its Ijranches, and also the head- 

 waters of the different forks of the American River, and rivers farther 

 south, rising at the summit of the Sierra Nevada Mountains — these latter 

 being stocked with Eastern trout alone, while all the former could be 

 stocked with Lake Tahoe trout. Eastern trout, and the land-locked 

 salmon. 



Lake Tahoe is of considerable importance as a resort for health and 

 pleasure by tourists from the East, as well as large numbers of our own 

 people. Boating and fishing are among its pastimes. Travel here must 

 increase as our State becomes more thickly populated. All these waters 



