STOCKING 403 



tnade very easy to spot by the disturbed beds of 

 gravel where wild trout have already spawned, but if 

 no redds are noticeable, any brightly gravelled shallow 

 will serve where the water is not too swift and where 

 the individual bits of stone and gravel forming the 

 bed of the stream are not too tightly bound to allow 

 the sheltering places for the alevins." 



The expense of doing this is comparatively small, 

 but it must be remembered that the mortality of fry 

 in the natural state in the river is very great, so that 

 the numbers required to be laid down must be pro- 

 portionately large. As before remarked, on a fishery 

 where this plan was adopted 10,000 eyed ova were laid 

 down nine years ago and 5000 alevins three years 

 later, and the result on a comparatively short length 

 of good shallows was quite surprising. 



If the fishery to be dealt with is very deficient in 

 spawning shallows the best plan will be to grow the 

 fry to the yearling stage in ordinary fry-ponds, and 

 the great danger to be avoided is that of overfeeding. 

 If the water has few shallows and long stretches of 

 slow- running deep water the yearlings should, if pos- 

 sible, be kept a second year in a stew, and here again 

 the amount of food to be given must be much less 

 than is usually provided in the trout-breeders' ponds. 



In a modern trout stew, selected and constructed on 

 the principles laid down in an earlier part of this 

 chapter, natural food will be plentiful and the quantity 

 of hand-feeding reduced to a minimum. At the early 

 stages for 500 yearlings, 7 lb. of minced cooked horse- 



