30 MONTANA STATE FISH AND GAME COMMISSION 



to be enlarged sufficiently to properly care for Montana's game fish egg 

 collections. 



Eggs 



Montana is indeed fortunate in having looked into the future and realized 

 that certain bodies of water must be developed and held exclusively for the 

 taking of millions of trout eggs necessary to supply the hatcheries and main- 

 tain them at full production. Without them the Department would be compelled 

 to purchase eggs from outside sources. This would involve the expenditure 

 of many thousands of dollars now used for rearing and distribution. 



There are five outstanding spawning fields available to the Department: 

 Georgetown lake, Ashley lake, Hebgen lake, Rogers lake and Alvord lake. 



Georgetown lake, maintaining a position of prominence over the entire 

 United States, showed a heavy decrease in 1935 because of extreme low water 

 in the Flint creek drainage and because of over-fishing by anglers. The Mon- 

 tana Fish and Game Commission, realizing that immediate action was neces- 

 sary to conserve the trout population, has barred ice fishing entirely in the 

 lake and restricted the summer fishing to Saturdays and Sundays and legal 

 holidays. 



The result of this action has been a marked improvement in egg collec- 

 tions in the spring of 1936, which were made under more favorable weather 

 conditions. The increase was about 100 percent above the 1935 take. 



Heavy inroads have been made on the sucker population of Georgetown, 

 •which have been present since 1926 and for a time threatened to deplete the 

 trout due to competition for natural food. However, the constant use of fyke 

 nets during the spawning seasons has served to limit the number of suckers 

 to such a degree that favorable conditions for trout again exist. 



The development of Ashley lake in the Kalispell district, to augment the 

 supply of native trout eggs from Georgetown, has been progressing in a satis- 

 factory manner. Egg collections for the spring of 1936 showed a healthy 

 gain over 1935 with a total of 1,618,000 eggs collected. 



Improvements of a permanent nature have been completed on the traps 

 and a new hatchery has been built to take care of the increased egg take. 

 This building is a log structure which harmonizes with the surrounding land- 

 scape and is of sufficient capacity to handle anticipated future egg collec- 

 tions. 



The Rainbow and Loch Leven spawning field at Hebgen lake is one of 

 the Department's most valuable assets and with continued heavy plantings 

 in the Madison, Gibbon and other waters tributary to Hebgen lake, it is ex- 

 pected that egg collections can be further increased. In the fall of 193-1 a total 

 of 5,735,040 Loch Leven eggs were collected and in the spring of 1935 the 

 Rainbow egg take totaled 12,447,936. 



Very few Loch Leven eggs were collected in the fall of 1935 because of a 

 severe cold wave which formed large quantities of slush ice in the river and 

 swept away a portion of the traps soon after operations commenced. 



Floating steel rack sections since have been installed which will allow the 

 floating ice to pass over without damage to the traps. This will prevent a 

 recurrence of the unfortunate trick played by nature in the fall of 1935. 



A total of 12,540,909 Rainbow eggs were collected from this station in 

 the spring of 1936. 



A four-room log cabin has been erected to serve as quarters for the 



