A Sportsman 457 



The}'- remain on the spawning beds during the nights 

 of about a week in the latter part of October. The 

 large trout often get among them on the spawning 

 grounds at night and make havoc. One evening as I 

 was wading with rubber boots, with lantern and net, 

 I felt a heav\^ movement on my legs, and turning my 

 light saw a large trout, which, I netted, weighing seven 

 pounds. 



Of late years the landlocked salmon (Salmo con- 

 finis) have become fairly plentiful, particularly in the 

 Rangeley Lake proper, where first introduced, some 

 twenty years ago, and also in the large lake, and in 

 the Richardson Lakes. In the latter a member of my 

 family caught one weighing seven and one-half pounds. 

 The salt water smelt introduced a few years ago has 

 increased extensively and extended rapidly to all 

 the lakes of the range. This fish seems readily to 

 habituate itself to most fresh-water lakes, and has 

 increased to a very large extent in the Rangeley 

 waters, although confined to a small size of three or four 

 inches in length. Although large numbers are ob- 

 served dead, floating upon the surface of the water in 

 the spring-time, the increase seems hardly to be aflfected. 

 This fish is apparently an admirable food for the salmon 

 and trout, and in the spring would seem to be the prin- 

 cipal food, as their stomachs seem to be crowded with 

 them, and I have repeatedly observed from fifty to 

 seventy in a single trout of large size. 



I consider without question the smelt to be the most 

 valuable fish for food stocking of fresh-water ponds and 

 lakes. 



The landlocked salmon varies in size largely in the 

 fresh-water lakes where placed In the Sebago Lake 



