The Cut-throat Trout 



a nine and three-quarter pound fish in Pelican Bay, Upper Klamatli 

 Lake. 



These trout can be taken in all sorts of ways. Trolling in the 

 lakes with the spoon or phantom minnow is the usual method, but they 

 rise readily to the artificial fly, the grasshopper, or a buncn of salmon 

 eggs. In the larger streams they may be caught in any of these 

 ways, while in the smaller streams casting with the fly or with hook 

 baited with grasshopper or salmon eggs is the most successful way. 



To enumerate the streams and lakes in the West where one may 

 find good trout-fishing would be entirely impracticable; they are 

 numerous in all the Western States. One of us has found exception- 

 ally fine trout fishing at the Dempsey Lakes in Montana, in and about 

 the Payette and Redfish lakes in Idaho, in Pacific Creek, and in the 

 Klamath Lakes. Near Redfish Lake, in Idaho, is a small lake known 

 as Fish Lake. Its area is about 25 acres. It is nearly circular in form, 

 very shallow, and 9000 feet above sea-level. In this little lake a 

 particularly beautiful form of cut-throat is exceedingly abundant. 



In August they could be taken on the artificial fly as rapidly 

 as one could cast, averaging more than one per minute. They 

 bit vigorously, and were very gamy, often jumping 2 or 3 times 

 out of the water. In this region the best fishing in the small streams 

 is in the spring and up to late July. In the small lakes it con- 

 tinues good through the summer. In the streams somewhat 

 larger, summer fishing is fairly good, but not until October is it at 

 its best. But while some seasons are better than others, the 

 angler will quite certainly always find good cut-throat trout fishing at 

 whatever season he cares to try it. The typical cut-throat trout 

 (Salmo clarkii) may be described as follows: 



Head 4; depth 4; D. 10; A. 10; coeca 43; scales small, in 

 150 to 170 cross series. Body elongate, compressed; head rather 

 short; mouth moderate, the maxillary not reaching far beyond 

 the eye; vomerine teeth as usual set in an irregular zig-zag series; 

 teeth on the hyoid bone normally present, but often obsolete 

 in old examples; dorsal fin rather low; caudal fin slightly forked 

 (more so in the young). Colour, silvery olivaceous, often dark 

 steel colour; back, upper part of side and caudal peduncle pro- 

 fusely covered with rounded black spots of varying sizes and 

 shapes, these spots often on the head, and sometimes extending 

 on the belly; dorsal, adipose, and caudal fins covered with sim- 

 ilar spots about as large as the nostril; inner edge of the man- 

 dible with a deep-red blotch, which is a diagnostic mark; middle 



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