THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 89 
With commercial fishing, especially with seining, in progress in 
the lower river, it is always the tendency of the anglers of the upper 
river to blame the commercial fishermen for poor fishing experienced. 
Yet stringent restrictions govern this fishing, heavy penalties are 
provided for the taking of steelhead trout, game wardens are supposed 
to be vigilant, the trout cannot be sold, canned or utilized, and incentive 
is lacking for violation. Moreover, with the exception of two years the 
river was closed, for thirty years there has been commercial fishing 
at the mouth, and until the past five years there were no restrictions 
against taking steelheads commercially, and both salmon and steel- 
heads were taken indiscriminately. Some of these years furnished the 
best angling on record—so while the commercial fisherman is a con- 
tributary cause, it is evident that there are other causes. 
Undoubtedly a contributary cause is the lack of protection given 
the trout during the spawning season, from the many alleged sports- 
men who make a practice of slaughtering spawning steelhead. These 
fish-hogs clamor for legislation to curb the commercial fisherman, 
but become very indignant at the suggestion of curbing their own 
rapacity, which does more to exterminate the trout than the summer 
operations of the salmon fisherman. It is true that the state law 
prohibits the taking of trout under ten inches in length between 
October and April, but except in the cold waters of the mountain 
streams few fish under ten inches in length are matured sufficiently 
to spawn in Southern Oregon streams, and in the colder waters the 
spawning months are April, May and June—so that the law really 
affords little or no protection to the spawning fish. 
The steelhead trout spawns from November until May. The 
summer run, coming into the river from the sea in late spring and 
summer, which furnishes the season’s fly fishing, are the first to 
spawn, beginning in November. The great run of spawning steelheads 
comes up during the high water of the winter months and scatters 
along the gravel bars of the Rogue and its smaller tributaries. Febru- 
ary and March are the principal spawning months. 
Spawning, like childbirth, is an exhaustive process, depleting the 
strength and vitality of the fish, which becomes emaciated and weak— 
commonly called “spent’—and requires a period of rest and recupera- 
tion and feeding to become again in prime condition. The great bulk 
of the spent fish drift down to the ocean for recuperation, though a 
percentage remain in fresh water. 
The trout, either before, during or after spawning, is not good 
to eat. Its meat is flabby and juiceless. In its weakened condition it 
is not able to give the angler much of a battle. It offers the chance 
sought by the butcher for slaughter, but not the angler for sport. 
Every steelhead caught during the winter and early spring months 
means so many hundreds fewer fish in the future, and with the 
number of anglers increasing annually there is a constantly increasing 
slaughter. 
No one knows where the steelhead go after entering salt water, 
but it is within the bounds of probabilities that occasionally disaster 
overtakes them, that for some unknown cause there has been an 
unwonted increase in natural enemies to thin their ranks, or that 
some submarine upheaval has exterminated entire shoals—for all 
anadromous fish have their unsolved mysteries of off seasons due 
to ocean tragedies. 
The wantonness of commercial fishermen, the rapacity of bait-fish 
hogs, the low water, the hot summer and the enigmatical calamities, 
the sea—some of them factors, perhaps all of them—contributed to 
make poor steelhead angling in the Rogue River for the season of 1915. 
