CHAPTER XIII ! 



THE GOLDEN TROUT OF THE HIGH 

 SIERRAS, AND THEIR ENEMIES 



HE purpose of this chapter is to call attention to 

 one of the most beautiful things in this world, 

 and to appeal to the anglers in behalf of its pres- 

 ervation. The Sierra Nevada, the great backbone 

 of California, extends for- a thousand miles within the State, 

 besides other thousands of miles of Cascades and Selkirks and 

 Alaskan ranges to the north, and still other thousands of 

 miles of Cordilleras in the regions toward the sun and beyond 

 the sun. From the flanks of these mountains flow thousands 

 of brooks, from the melting of the snow which gives the 

 range the name of Nevada, the " snow-clad." In all of 

 these streams which trout can reach, there are trout in great 

 abundance and variety — for the most part, the rainbow 

 trout of the coastwise streams, modified a little for moun- 

 tain purposes into other varieties, called the Shasta trout 

 and Gilbert's trout. The former is in the north, the latter 

 in the south, and no one can tell them apart in the El Dorado 

 country where the two forms meet. 



The highest peak in the Sierra Nevada is Mount Whit- 

 ney — 15,000 feet — and its drainage on the California side 

 falls into the Kern River, a great, clear, green, swift stream, 

 among the granite rocks, its waters slipping along like oil ; 

 a river with rippling shallows and deep cold eddies, the 

 perfect home of trout, and the veritable home of the crim- 

 son-sided, black-speckled, fine-scaled, white-tipped form of 

 the rainbow trout which the writer named years ago for his 



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