American Fisheries Socvety. Py, 
President: Gentlemen, we have here the President of the 
South Side Club, and I know we would like to hear from him on 
the trout question. 
Permit me to introduce Mr. Slade. 
Mr. Slade: The South Side Club, as some of you know who 
have visited it, runs a hatchery simply for the purpose of stock- 
ing its own waters. ‘Twenty-five years ago when the late Hon. 
George M. Robson was secretary of the navy, we received from 
him a consignment of rainbow trout eggs. These were hatched, 
and at the age of three years were placed in our ponds which 
previously contained, and still contain, nothing but brook trout. 
We found no trouble in raising the fish, but as a sporting fish 
there were two objections to him: one was that the meat was not 
particularly good; they were rather a soft fish; and the second 
and chief objection from the sportman’s point of view was, that 
it was very difficult indeed to capture them with a fly. We then 
tried the experiment of turning them into the salt water (our 
ponds communicate with the great South bay), and for a number 
of years we had very fair sport with those fish, they going down 
to the salt water and returning the following year with scales. 
But even then it was necessary to capture them with bait and not 
with a fly. Within the last few years, owing to striped bass hav- 
ing appeared in our river, the rainbows that we turned out have 
practically disappeared. We would turn out 3,000 or 4,000 fish 
and only catch perhaps two or three hundred. 
In regard to the natural spawning of those fish, I can say 
very little, because our ponds being stocked every year with large 
fish the natural fish have a very slight opportunity for spawning, 
the eggs probably being eaten by the larger fish. 
There is another subject that I would like to give a word of 
warning about, and that is in regard to the German brown trout. 
About ten or twelve years ago we received from the Cold Spring 
hatchery a few eggs of this fish. We hatched them and raised 
them to three years old, and were beginning to be quite enthusi- 
astic about them, owing to their rapid growth, etc., but fortu- 
nately before we turned any of them out we learned from the 
Caledonia hatchery of the bad results of turning them out in 
Caledonia creek, and we therefore disposed of nearly all of the 
