572 



BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 



Fig. 20.— Average weight of trout in 13-year-periods of 6 years each, overlapping 3 years. Dotted line, all trout; broken line, 



2 pounds and over; solid line, 8 pounds and over. 



Records, by lakes. — The assignment of records to the lake in which the fish were 

 caught is impossible in many cases. Many published accounts refer to general regions, 

 and when the report is from some specific locality it is not always possible to ascertain 

 beyond doubt from which lake the fish came. For instance, Mountain View may have 

 reported fish from Mooselucmaguntic Lake or Rangeley Stream without specifying the 

 water. Doubtless the great majority of Upper Dam catches were from below the dam 

 in MoUechunkamunk waters. However, in the present compilation all Mountain View 

 fish have been attributed to Oquossoc and all Upper Dam fish to Mooselucmaguntic. 

 Consequently, Mooselucmaguntic Lake has far larger records than do the Richardson 

 Lakes. 



Number and size of trout, by lakes. — In 1887 a correspondent of a sportsmen's paper 

 wrote: "It is a feature of these big trout worth mentioning that the largest have all 

 come from Lake Mooselucmaguntic, the largest of the chain, though there is merely 

 a dam between that lake and Richardson Lake below. The largest fish ever taken in 

 the latter lake would not go over 10 pounds, while the record of the Rangeley Lake, 

 above Mooselucmaguntic, is not much better." Another correspondent in 1896, on the 

 other hand, wrote: "We discovered that Mooselucmaguntic furnished big fish, Rangeley 

 Lake numbers, and Richardson the biggest and finest." However, all the largest fish, 

 from II pounds up, were definitely referred to Mooselucmaguntic. The other lakes 

 furnished more or less of the fish from 8 pounds up, but the records compiled for the 

 present report do not throw much light upon the comparative rank of the three lakes, 

 owing to the fact that Mooselucmaguntic doubtless includes many properly belonging to 

 Richardson, because of the uncertainty or impossibility of always ascertaining whether 

 Upper Dam records pertain to the lake above or to the pool below the dam, as pre- 

 viously noted. 



