32 REPORT OF STATE BOARD OF FISH COMMISSIONERS. 



During the past summer it has been closed again, and the salmon will 

 now have an unobstructed highway up the river. 



The Fish Commission is also under obligations to the San Francisco 

 and North Pacific Railway for free transportation, and also to the North 

 Pacific Coast Railroad, both giving the use of their baggage cars and free 

 passes for the attendants over their lines in shipping trout and Black 

 bass for distribution. 



I wish here also to acknowledge the many courtesies and aid extended 

 to the Fish Commission by the many applicants for trout and Black 

 bass, who have furnished teams to transport the fish and attendants 

 from the railway station to the streams for planting; also, to Mr. J. H. 

 Sisson for the use of the ground and the water for the Sisson Hatchery, 

 and to the Edson Brothers for the use of the ground for the Shovel Creek 

 Hatchery on their hotel grounds, and the privilege of trapping Shovel 

 Creek for trout. 



HAT CREEK. 



I visited Hat Creek to see what advantages the State Hatchery there 

 offered for hatching salmon. The hatchery at Hat Creek is a large 

 building one hundred feet by forty-six feet, with sixty-four troughs six- 

 teen feet long and twelve inches wide. The building has settled at its 

 upper end owing to poor underpinning; the troughs have the grade the 

 wrong way. The dependence for water is from a ditch owned by pri- 

 vate parties, who use it for running machinery. The water comes 

 through the ditch from up Hat Creek, and the ditch is dug through a 

 formation of infusorial earth which is disintegrated by frost, making it 

 very loose and friable; it crumbled into the water in the ditch, and was 

 held in suspension in such quantities that it covered up the eggs in 

 the hatching troughs. 



The proper way is for the Commission to have entire control of the 

 water for the hatchery. Copartnership in a ditch causes trouble, and 

 the water is liable to be turned off entirely from the hatchery, which 

 would cause, if it lasted for a few hours, the entire loss of all the fish 

 and eggs. The water could be brought into the hatchery by an under- 

 current wheel built in Hat Creek, near the upper end of the hatchery, 

 which would give a large quantity of clear, cold water, and would, if 

 built strongly, give a certainty to the continuousness of the supply; for 

 Hat Creek never rises, as I have been informed, over eight inches above 

 low-water mark. Hat Creek has a large volume of water at all seasons. 



I think the more suitable place for the hatchery would be at the con- 

 fluence of Hat Creek with Pitt River, on a point of land about two miles 

 below the present site of the hatchery, where a large spring flows of clear, 

 cold water; and as it is at the lower end of a fall or riffle in Hat Creek, 

 a ditch of short length could be cheaply made to bring water for ponds. 

 Opposite, and close at hand, is a seining place in Pitt River, and at this 

 point, also, in Hat Creek, a trap could be built, as well as in Pitt River, 

 to trap salmon and trout for spawners. The hatchery and spawning 

 traps would be close together, which is of great importance for accom- 

 modation and security. (Fourteen years ago, when the old Board of 

 Fish Commissioners gave me instructions to survey the Pitt River Falls, 

 I selected this place as the most suitable for a salmon hatchery, if one 

 ever should be built on Pitt River.) 



There are not many salmon running up Pitt River, it is said, but if these 



