35° FIFTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



kept the whitefish in the nets only about twenty-four hours and if they did 

 not get into spawning condition by that time they were liberated. Having 

 fourteen trap nets and two pound nets fishing, it was easy to catch the fish 

 again after liberation. 



On December ioth Mr. Scriba went to Hemlock Lake to fish for white- 

 fish, but he was too late to find spawning fish. On December 12th the ice 

 was giving the men in Canandaigua Lake a great deal of trouble and wind 

 prevented them from visiting all the nets. The nets were taking a lot of 

 male fish, but very few females. 



Whitefish eggs were shipped from Canandaigua Lake on November 

 29th, December 1st, 6th, ioth, nth and 18th, a total of 3,528,000; from 

 Saranac Inn eggs were forwarded November 12th, 14th and 17th, 1908, a 

 total of 10,395,000. These are the eggs that were described after my visit 

 early in January. 1909. 



Eggs shipped from the Adirondack hatchery to the Oneida Station 

 showed the results of transportation injuries early in January, 1909. Per- 

 haps they were shipped before they had been sufficiently hardened. Fore- 

 man Scriba likes to have the eggs nicely hardened or else shipped in the 

 milt; he finds that it takes forty-eight hours to harden up the eggs 

 sufficiently for transportation. 



The difficulty in crating whitefish in Canandaigua Lake seems to be 

 that the fish plug, and hundreds of them yield nothing at all. According 

 to Mr. Scriba it made no difference whether the crates were on the bottom 

 or raised from the bottom, the fish plugged just the same in either case. 

 This trouble seemed to be caused by storms. Whitefish cannot be held 

 longer than two days even in nets. The best way is to use plenty of nets, 

 let the fish go if not ripe, and catch them over again. In the crate the white 

 fish were not only plugged but they were swollen, and the eggs when pressed 

 out came in bunches and could not be used. 



In Canandaigua Lake trap nets answer for whitefish better than pound 

 nets, but in waters adjacent to the Adirondack hatchery and in Keuka Lake 

 trap nets are unsuccessful while pound nets answer better. 



In Canandaigua Lake Mr. Scriba's men found just as many fish at the 

 head of the Lake and along the east shore as there are at the south end. 

 The fish were all around the shore. For the Canandaigua Lake fishing Mr. 



