62 REPORT OF STATE BOARD OF FISH COMMISSIONERS. 



The young have very rarely been found, a fact which has led many to 

 believe that the Brook trout are only the young of this species, especially 

 as the latter are always, or usually, found in abundance in the same 

 streams. 



Salmo gairdneri irideus Gibbons. 



This is the Rainbow or Brook trout proper. It is also known by 

 various other names. There is no difficulty in distinguishing the adult 

 of this species from the adult of the Steel-head, but the half grown are 

 remarkably alike, and intergradations of all sorts are abundant. It does 

 not attain nearly the size of the Steel-head, the largest recorded weigh- 

 ing but six pounds. These large examples are very rare. I have seen 

 only one in the markets of San Francisco, and, as I have stated above, 

 this was represented to be a young salmon. 



The young are caught in large numbers in all the trout streams in 

 Central and Southern California. It probably does not enter salt water as 

 readily as the Steel-head, but it probably runs into the sea from short 

 rivers which are dry in summer, and from others having a continuous 

 stream of clear water. 



It is a most excellent table fish, but not caught in quantity for the 

 market. Its chief value seems to be to offer sport to anglers, and this 

 is said to be of a very tame kind. It has been extensively introduced 

 and seems to flourish in many eastern streams. Specimens have been 

 taken in salt water near Oakdale, Long Island. 



It varies more in size, color, etc., with the stream it inhabits than any 

 other fresh-water fish. 



Mr. Henshaw says of this species: 



This is the common Brook trout of the small mountain streams of the Pacific Slope, 

 and up to an altitude of nine thousand feet it is the rare exception to find a suitable 

 stream that is not well stocked with it. Upon many of them, as the tributaries of the 

 South Fork of the Kern River, these trout are found in very great abundance, each pool 

 and rapid numbering its finny denizens by the score. They may be taken in any sort of 

 weather, at any hour of the day, by almost any kind of bait. During the heat of the day 

 they frequent almost entirely the deeper pools, lying under overshadowing rocks or in 

 the shade of some convenient log. In early morning or late afternoon they come out and 

 run more into the shallows and rapids, under which circumstances they bite best and 

 afford the finest sport. Like the average Brook trout the species rarely attains any con- 

 siderable size, ranging from foiir to eight or more inches in length. Their colors are 

 usually very bright, and for beauty this species takes rank among the foremost of its 

 kind, and has well been called the Golden trout. In this respect, however, it is subject 

 to the usual variation obtaining in the family, the change of color not only accompany- 

 ing a difference in locality, but being plainlj' discernible in individuals taken in different 

 parts of the same stream not far distant. In fact, as a specific character, color in this 

 family seems to be at its lowest value. The character of the bottom and water itself has 

 much to do with this, and I remember to have fished in a small rivulet on one of the sub- 

 alpine meadows not far from Mount Whitney, whose sluggish waters flowed over a 

 bottom of dark mud, in which the color of the trout simulated very closely its hue; they 

 had lost nearly all the flashing iridescent tints characterizing the same species caught 

 but a few liours before in another stream, and had become dull and somber-hued. 

 Accompanying this change of color was a correspondingly noticeable difference in the 

 habits and motions, and the several dozen trout caught that evening for supper were 

 taken out by the hook with the display of very little more gaminess than would be 

 noticed in so many Horned pout. On the contrary, in the clear rapid current of the 

 mountain stream, a. flash of siinlight is scarcely quicker than the gleam of gold and 

 silver, seen for a single instant, as the whirling waters are cut by one of the trout as he 

 makes a rush from his lurking place for some chance morsel which is being borne past 

 him. The western trout are rarely as shy as their relatives of eastern waters, and 

 because of their numbers and consequent scarcity of food are apt to be less fastidious; 

 yet even when most abundant due caution must be used if one would be successful, and 

 not every one can catch troiit even in the West. With tne proper care in concealing one's 

 self a pool may be almost decimated ere the alarm will be taken, and I have seen fifteen 

 fair sized trout taken from a single small pool in quick succession. 



