TiS&D GAMEComssioN 



Superintendent's Residence, Somers State Hatchery, Flathead Lake. 



The Dolly Varden trout is a good game fish, it is a fresh water 

 salmon and is quite plentiful in the waters of Montana on the Pacific 

 slope, although it also is found quite abundant in the St. Mary's Lakes 

 in Teton County on the east side of the Rocky Mountains, these waters 

 being the only place where the Dolly Varden is found on the east side 



The Dolly Varden trout, like the Eastern brook trout, belongs to 

 the char family; it is said to be rather more of a cannibal than other 

 trout, but the native black-spotted trout as a rule, is able to keep out 

 of its way, and to many anglers the Dolly Varden affords rare sport; 

 it attains a weight of over twenty pounds, specimens of this fish have 

 been caught in McDonald's Lake weighing twenty-two pounds. Thou- 

 sands of pounds of this fish have been netted in Flathead Lake during 

 the past season, and sold mostly in Kalispell, where they bring from 

 twenty to twenty-five cents per pound in our retail markets; if it were 

 not a good food fish it could not be sold for such prices; if the net- 

 ting of this fish is continued it will only be a short time till this fish 

 is exterminated. To save it from this fate, the law permitting its being 

 netted ought to be repealed, and its capture limited to the hook and 

 line the same as other trout. 



The largest member of the trout or char family is the lake trout 

 found in St. Mary's Lakes, and which corresponds very closely in ap- 

 pearance to the Mackinaw trout of the "Great Lakes." Specimens of 

 this trout have been taken from St. Mary's Lakes weighing forty-eight 

 pounds, while in Lake Superior this fish has been known to attain a 

 weight of one hundred and twenty-five pounds. This trout, if anything, 

 is more of a cannibal than the Dolly Varden, yet the St. Mary's Lakes 

 fairly teem with other food fish, including the ling, cut-throat trout, 

 Dolly Varden, the common and Richardson whitefish, as well as wall- 

 eyed pike. 



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