RANGELEY LAKES, MAINE: FISHES, ANGLING, AND FISH CULTURE. 565 



It is not only the adult fish that suffer from destructive agencies, but the young 

 are subjected to them almost on every hand. They enter the shallow water of shore 

 and brook to escape their enemies of deep water and are beset by enemies of land and 

 air. There, also, they are liable to perish through change of physical conditions that 

 act rapidly and effectively. The shoals of small brooks, laid bare by hot weather, 

 restrict the young trout to little pools, which later evaporate, and the fish die, being 

 unable to get to permanent pools or into the lake ; or, while in the shallow shore waters 

 of stream or lake, the sudden opening of the gates of a dam previously closed for some 

 time leaves the fish confined in the pools, which, if they do not evaporate, often 

 become so warm that the fish perish, or else they become the prey of birds and mammals 

 or even of frogs and snakes. 



In small brooks the danger is not alone from evaporation. Freshets are sometimes 

 disastrous. The writer has seen a spring-fed rivulet suddenly swollen by rain until it 

 overflowed onto a wood road, carrying many small trout out into the ruts and wheel 

 tracks, where the fish were left by the comparatively sudden subsidence of the water, 

 and doubtless many that he was unable to rescue ultimately perished. 



In Forest and Stream, June 25, 1904, the late F. A. Samuels, of ornithological and 

 piscatorial fame, cited an instance of waste of trout fry in the following words : 



The most remarkable waste of trout fry that ever came to my observation occurred a number of 

 years ago at the Middle Dam, on the Rangeley Lakes, Me. The gates of the dam had been wide open 

 and the water had been running over the lower flashboards the whole length of the dam for several 

 weeks, and in consequence of this abundance of water the river below the dam was more than bank 

 full, the water spreading into the bushes along the shores sometimes several rods beyond the stream 

 itself. In the middle of the river the water was a roaring, rushing, foaming mass, which pitched and 

 tumbled over huge bowlders and ledges in the wildest manner imaginable; but along both shores it 

 was murky and foam covered and there was little motion in it except that which was caused by eddies 

 and small waves from the rushing midstream. 



As I was standing on the bank one day, busily engaged in casting the fly in the still water above, 

 I was joined by two men whom I afterwards learned were employees of the Lewiston Water Power Co. 

 They had come to close the gates, for a big raft of logs was coming down the lake above and a full head 

 of water was needed. They went about their work at once, and they did it thoroughly, for the gates 

 were not only tightly closed, but new flashboards were put on the dam, and almost every drop of water 

 was held back. As a result of this action the river bed below the dam was emptied of water almost 

 as quickly as would be a basin held in one's hand. The rapidity with which the water dropped was 

 astonishing, and it seemed as if I could in a very few minutes walk about everywhere in the bed of the 

 stream where the water had been, before the gates were closed, from 4 to 6 feet deep. There I found 

 almost countless numbers of small trout, which had been left by the receding waters among the bushes, 

 crevices in rocks, and shoal places, they being unable to escape with the quickly vanishing water. 

 They were little fellows from about an inch and a half in length, and there must have been thousands 

 of them. I never saw such a havoc in my life. How it happened that so many of these small trout 

 had congregated at that point I never knew. They were all nearly of one size and may have been 

 of the season's hatch which had ascended the 5 miles of Rapid River, in which there are a number of 

 famous spawning beds, and had been stopped by the dam; but whatever the cause might have been 

 that brought them there, they reached the dam only to find destruction. 



Trout culture at Rangeley lakes. — The Oquossoc Angling Association was organized 

 in 1867, but it was not until 1873 that the first hatchery was erected. This was on 

 " Beama " Stream. In 1877 another was buUt near the old dam on Rangeley Stream. 

 Regarding this hatchery Forest and Stream in 1883 reported: "This hatchery has been 



