REPORT OF STATE BOARD OF FISH COMMISSIONERS. 27 



TAHOE HATCHERY, 1890. 



I now proceeded, accompanied by Mr. Hunt, to Lake Tahoe to open 

 the spring campaign there. The road not being open from Truckee, we 

 had to go up by way of Carson. 



On arriving at the hatchery, our house we found buried in snow — it 

 had been twelve feet deep on a level, but in places the wind had drifted 

 it to a great height. After putting new wings to the bag of the old 

 seine, we hired the steamer Tod Goodwin to take our traps, seines, 

 boats, bedding, and provisions up to the mouth of Taylor Creek, twenty 

 miles at the uppermost end of the lake. The steamer also towed up the 

 scow Lillie Van, which was already fitted up with rooms, stove, and cook- 

 ing outfit. This scow we hauled into the stream: it was to be our home 

 while seining in the lake at the mouth of the creek. The seine was 

 hauled three times a night: once just after dark, again about midnight, 

 and once again before daylight. Some of the nights were so cold that 

 the seine Avould freeze stiff five minutes after it was hauled out of the 

 water. A bonfire burned while hauling the seine, casting its light over 

 the water; the boatmen could thus see what ground to go over in pay- 

 ing out the seine and rowing in. 



They would catch at one haul from five to ten, fifteen, or twenty 

 trout, a few times more and sometimes not any; and many nights the 

 seine could not be hauled on account of the rough sea. A great many 

 Suckers were caught, sometimes as many as three hundred pounds weight 

 at a haul. Some Whitefish were also drawn in. The Suckers were so 

 plump that it was thought they must be full of trout spawn; twelve 

 were opened and not an egg was in their stomachs; but the Whitefish, 

 although small, were full of trout eggs. 



The seining continued here some time, till no more trout could be 

 caught. Mr. Burton and I went up the creek to the dam, but we did not 

 see half a dozen trout. 



The trout we caught were nearly all ripe; only about seven hundred 

 thousand trout eggs were got at this place. Mr. Burton and Mr. Sam 

 Nichols, who had fished in the lake many years, had prophesied that we 

 would get here all the spawn we wanted. 



The seine was drawn through the spring and summer at Meek's Bay, 

 Blackwood Creek, and at the Incline, in Nevada. Traps were put in at 

 Meek's, Phipps', and Blackwood Creeks. The creeks were so high, 

 especially on a hot day when the sun Avould melt the tremendous snows 

 of the past winter which fell on the headwaters in the Sierra Nevada 

 Mountains. The streams would rise in a tumultuous volume of icy, 

 roily water, which made it very difficult to put in the traps; and after a 

 trap had been put in Blackwood Creek, the water rose two feet over 

 all, tearing the trap out. The trap was put in again, but it was a trying 

 work for the boys: Hunt, Will and Joe Shebley, who, after working in 

 that icy water all day, slept on the banks of the creek in their wet 

 clothes. Fishing was continued up to about the last of July, when the 

 traps were all taken out. 



There is usually a large run of trout up Blackwood Creek in March. 

 Some time after we got up there a gill net was set in the current outside 

 the mouth of Blackwood Creek, and nineteen fish were caught, weighing 

 over two hundred pounds — one weighing a little over sixteen pounds. 

 These were towed behind a rowboat, tandem fashion, for about five 



