THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 



story it wouldn't be credited and it wouldn't enlighten the reader regarding 

 the "habits" of Clark's trout. To be sure, Indians used to catch them 

 even without a hook. 



When it is my luck to take a Cutthroat of a foot long or over my 

 flies have usually got out of my sight, carried by the stream into some deep 

 eddy whose surface I have fished in vain; perhaps drifted under a great 

 uprooted tree. Then a sudden straightening of the line warns me, or that 

 fense that surely is not sight nor feeling impels me to strike! In such a 

 bippy moment the Clark trout is quite the equal of any trout in fighting 

 qualities. 



SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 



Nature provides for the perpetuation of races by a vast progeny. A* 

 the seeds of a single thistle may sow an acre, so the eggs of a few fish, 

 if all should grow to maturity, would populate a river. But a monstrous 

 proportion of all species are destined to be food for their own or other tribes, 

 especially in their fry stage. 



The infant trout that slinks under the stone or later seeks the thin 

 shallow at the margin of the stream, becomes active and quick in turning 

 when he is six months old and perhaps three inches long. Ninety out of 

 every hundred have been eaten before this growth is attained. Nine out 

 of ten of these will go to fill the maw of larger fish. These little ones are 

 feeding on smaller ones of their own and other kinds. 



As a swallow escapes the hawk, so these little fish often escape their 

 big enemies — as a boy of ten outruns or outwits a man of forty. 



But the two-pounder lying in the deep, dark pool under the log, too 

 crafty to take the risk of rising for our flies, has a keen appetite and good 

 digestion. He will easily swallow a fish half his own length or a frog or 

 crawfish. When so gorged he pays no attention to a trifling feather toy 

 ten feet above him on the surface, but may deign to take a dessert of a 

 worm or shrimp that the current brings down to his lair. 



The big ones drive the next smaller out of the deepest and safest 

 hovers, and these dispossess the next smaller from less desirable haunts. 



By late August anglers ask each other, ' ' Where have the big trout 

 gone?" If we could swim the long, dark pools like the mink with his keen 

 eyes, we could readily answer. The clearness of the stream in late summer 

 and the meagre flow of water drivei the wary patriarch to the shade of 

 the inaccessible drift-pile, the big spring in the river bottom, and the lazy 

 pool, just freshened by the current that searches the crannies of the bank 

 and the hollows among the rocks. 



No trout rushes at the artificial fly so fiercely as the fingerling salmon 

 in April. And the attack of these is very different from that of trout. 

 The latter rush upward from the depths, and if they miss being hooked 

 plunge vertically down again. The young salmon seems to be in the air 

 before the flies touch the water. They dash in horizontal arcs, swift, silver- 



Fag-e eleven 



