4 BHLLKTIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 



STREAMS AND LAKES EXAMINED. 



That portion of tho southern High Sierras drained l)y the King-.s. Kaweah, and 

 Kern and, on its eastern slope, by numerous small streams tributary to Owens Lake, 

 is marvelously rich in mountain streams and small mountain lakes. Practically all 

 of them are naturally well suited to trout. The waters are usually clear and cold 

 and free from injurious contamination. The supply of fish food is ample; entonios- 

 traca and other small crustaceans, as well as aquatic insects and insect larvte, abound. 

 Yet many of these lakes as well as manj" of the streams in their upper courses are 

 entirely without fish of any kind. All the larger streams were originally well 

 supplied with trout and, in their lower warmer portions, with suckers and minnows, 

 and these fishes, especially the trout, naturally pushed their way up the main streams 

 and also into the tributaries until they came to waterfalls which proved impassable 

 barriers. Many of these streams have such barriers somewhere in their course. 



In nature, fishes are found only in those streams and lakes which they have been 

 able to reach from some other stream or lake. Usually the invasion of any stream 

 is from below; and falls that fishes can not surmount prove a final obstruction; 

 no fish will be found in that stream or any of its connecting waters above that 

 point. Occasionally by eating back into the watershed one stream may steal a portion 

 of the lieadwaters of another on the other side of the divide, and fishes sometimes 

 enter a water course in that way. This, however, happens but rarely. In the region 

 under consideration the streams are typical mountain streams, all more or less turbu- 

 lent, containing man}^ rapids, cascades, and waterfalls, and with long, relatively 

 quiet reaches where the waters flow through mountain meadows. The larger 

 streams flow through deep canyons, often with sheer walls several hundred feet high, 

 extending back from the top of which is the relatively level high plateau, traversed 

 by many smaller streams. Many, perhaps most, of these tributary streams leave tho 

 plateau in a series of cascades and falls, the latter sometimes manj' feet in a sheer 

 drop, and all picturesque and beautiful. These falls, in nearly all the streams tribu- 

 tary to Kern River above the mouth of the Little Kern and in those in the upper 

 courses of the Kaweahs and Kings, have proved impassable barriers, and the streams 

 above the falls ai-e wholly without trout or any other fish. Some of these barren 

 waters, however, have been stocked by private individuals, fish and game clubs, or 

 ]>y the state and federal governments. 



KAWEAH RIVER. 



Kings. Kaweah, and Kern are the three great rivers of the southern High Sierras, 

 whicii together constitute the headwaters of tho San Joaquin. The Kings and the 

 Kern liavi' their principal hcadwutcis among the high mountains north of Mount 

 M'hitney, Kings flowing westward and the Kern almost directly south. In the right 

 angle between these two rivers and approximately bisecting it is the Kaweah, flowing 

 southwest. All of these rivers finally reach that great area of low tule land in the 

 upper (southern) end of the San Joaciuin Valley, of which Tulare Lake is the center. 

 As a result of various agencies, chief of wliich are the extensive irrigation operations 

 now carried on in this portion of the San Joaquin Valley, only a relatively small pro- 

 portion of the water which these rivers bring down from the mountains cvei' reaches 



