296 DOMESTICATED TROUT. 



Tricks with Trout. 



If you want to make the colors of trout deep and dark, 

 grow them over a black, muddy bottom, well shaded. If 

 you want to cultivate light and delicate tints, grow the 

 trout on a light, open, gravelly bed. 



If you want to have trout short and deep, and, to use an 

 expressive Americanism, " chunky,"* grow them in a deep, 

 still pond. If you want to have them long and slim, grow 

 them in a shallow, swift current. 



If you want to have the trout in your ponds come to 

 spawn any particular day, turn on a large, swiftly running 

 stream, and they will come up. If you wish to retard 

 their spawning for a day, let a small slow stream over them, 

 and they will wait. 



If there is a fall of water where trout run wild, set a 

 common bushel basket behind the fall in a perpendicular 

 line with the top of the dam. The trout will spring up 

 the fall in the line of the current in attempting its passage ; 

 but, if not successful, will fall back in the line of gravita- 

 tion and be caught in the basket. If you wish to trap 

 trout from below into an enclosure above, on a brook, 

 screen it at the desired place, and arrange a pendent gate 

 or door of wire netting in the screen, as in a mouse-trap, 

 so that they can go through, but cannot come back. This 

 will work quite successfully in the spawning season, when 

 the trout's instinct to go up stream is very strong. 



If you wish to take trout out singly from a pond without 

 hurting them, bait a line (without a hook) with an inch- 

 square piece of red flannel. The trout will swallow it just 

 far enough to allow himself to be pulled out on the bank, 

 but not far enough to hurt him. 



If you want trout to frequent a particular place in your 

 pond, feed them there regularly. If you want them to re- 



* Also provincial in England, I believe. 



