THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 87 
CAUSE OF POOR ANGLING IN ROGUE 
RIVER DURING THE SEASON OF 1915 
3y GeEorGE Putnam, Editor of the Medford Mail-Tribune. 
The Rogue River is the most beautiful of the many beautiful rivers 
of Oregon. Like a silver ribbon, its crystal waters gleam and sparkle, 
as they rush wildly down rock-ribbed gorges, tumble madly in cascades 
and waterfalls, as it winds through picturesque panoramas of stately 
forest clad hills and smiling verdure clad valleys, from its source in 
the summit of the Cascades to its mouth in the Pacific, 200 miles away. 
Occasionally the swirling waters pause between swift riffles in placid 
pools that mirror the varied scenery of the banks—ere resuming the 
swift dash to the sea, wantonly wasting more power than Niagara. 
The Rogue is an overgrown mountain brook with the charms of the 
brook magnified a hundred fold. It is the finest fly fishing stream in 
the world and in its swift waters lurk the gamiest and fiercest of 
fighting fish—the King of trout—the Rogue River steelhead. Yet, the 
Rogue River occasionally has an off season, and the year 1915 furnished 
the poorest steelhead angling on record —and this despite good cut- 
throat trout angling and a large run of salmon at the mouth. This 
raises the question: What made the season poor? 
By poor fishing is not meant the unsolvable problem of days and 
even weeks when the erratic and whimsical trout will not raise readily 
to a fly, when as if at a given signal the finny tribe go on a hunger 
strike, for these vagaries and uncertainties only add to the charm of 
the sport—a challenge to the skill and patience of the angler. The 
Rogue, even in the most favorable season, is not a fish-hog’s stream— 
except to the unsportsman-like bait fisherman—and the most skilled 
angler earns his reward—for fishing waist-deep in the turbulent Rogue 
is not a gentle parlor pastime. By poor fishing is meant an actual 
scarcity of fish. 
As theorizing and philosophizing about trout is a feature of the 
sport, second only to preparedness and realization, the following 
reasons for poor angling are given for what they are worth by one who 
knows the river and has studied the fish persistently enough to know a 
great deal more than he does about them. 
Important factors to be considered are: 
The supply of fish—the native stock, the rate of depletion and the 
rate of replenishment. 
The food supply. 
The water—its quality, quantity and temperature. 
The Rogue was abundantly supplied with trout by nature. Its many 
gravel bars are the natural spawning beds of both salmon and trout. 
The rate of depletion by anglers has increased many fold with the 
growth of population. There are a hundred anglers now where a decade 
ago there was one, and there is no closed season for trout. But this is 
largely offset by the decrease in commercial fishing. The entire river 
is closed to commercial fishing for steelhead. Salmon fishing is per- 
mitted from May to November from the mouth to the Illinois River, 
and for a sixty-day season on a ten-mile stretch at Grants Pass. There 
is an honest effort to enforce the law against taking steelhead by the 
cannerymen, but the irresponsible fisherman who does the catching 
resents the restrictions and is a frequent violater. The seine is 
