50 REPORT OF STATE BOARD OF FISH COMMISSIONERS. 



Report on Steelhead Work, Season of 1906. 



Grizzly Bluff, Cal., June 1, 1906. 

 To the Honorable the Board of Fish Commissioners. 



Gentlemen: The following is my report on the steelhead work for the season of 

 1906. This season the work of catching the fish was confined entirely to trapping them 

 at the darn at Price Creek. The results were very encouraging, and show that the 

 hatching work and a few T years of close season for the seines will make this game fish 

 as plentiful on Eel River as it was in former days. The weather conditions this season 

 have been very favorable for the work. The rains lasted late into May, making the 

 water in Price Creek purer and cooler than ordinary. The following is a summary of 

 the season's work: 



Total number of eggs taken ... 411,400 



Total number of eggs eyed 370,000 



Loss in eying 41,400 



Loss in hatchingand rearing 18,000 



Fry distributed 352,000 



Number of fish caught — 



Males 36 



Females ..-. 113 



Number of females spawned 92 



Average weight of fish — 



Males 5 



Females - 7 



Highest temperature of water 58° 



Lowest temperature of water 39° 



All the fry were placed in Price and Howe creeks. 

 Yours respectfully, 



W. O. FASSETT. 



GOLDEN TROUT (Salmo roosevelti). 



(See Frontispiece.) 



These are among the most beautiful fishes known to fish culturists 

 and have attracted the attention of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries to 

 such an extent that definite steps are now being taken toward their 

 artificial propagation and transplanting into other waters. 



In 1893, Dr. David Starr Jordan, of Stanford University, first pro- 

 cured some beautiful specimens from the southern High Sierras, which 

 he named Salmo mylciss agua-bonita. In the same year Dr. Charles H. 

 Gilbert, Zoologist of Stanford University, visited the Kern region and 

 secured some fine examples in Volcano Creek. President Roosevelt, 

 after whom the Volcano Creek fish are named, became greatly inter- 

 ested in their welfare, and brought the matter to the attention of the 

 Hon. George M. Bowers, U. S. Commissioner of Fisheries, who, in com- 

 pliance with the request of the President, ordered an investigation to be 

 made, with a view of determining the natural geographic distribution 

 of this trout, its abundance, its habits as to food and spawning, its qual- 

 ities as a food and game fish, and into what waters, if any, it had been 

 transplanted, and finally to determine in what other streams it might 

 be introduced. An investigation party, headed by Barton W. Ever- 



