THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 53 



bass, grayling and any of the many varieties of bay fishes may 

 be taken by angling at any season of the year, subject only to 

 the qualification as to the first three named, of their measuring 

 ten inches or over. 



It is a popular idea that the fishing season opens in the 

 spring of the year, and, to most purposes, so it does. About the 

 time when the first wild flowers venture to peep at the uncertain 

 weather, and after the last snow patches have disappeared from 

 the hollows of the lower woods, we read on the calendar that it 

 is the first of April. The state says we may now go "a fishing." 

 And though we have been fishing often during the preceding 

 months of winter and early spring, we have gotten into the habit 

 i of calling this first April day the opening of the season. 



Let us then begin our fishing with the first of April. We 

 have looked forward to the date, recognizing in it our first chance 

 to catch a mess of early brook trout. And here, at the expense 

 of appearing inconsistent, permit an amplification. The trout 

 here referred to is not that gorgeous little fellow popularly known 

 as the eastern brook trout; the brook trout of the east, is 

 not a trout at all. Sounds like a paradox, doesn't it? One 

 might well ask the conundrum, when is a trout not a trout? 

 And the answer would be, when it is a char. To be more exact, 

 while the small trout of our Oregon brooks, the cut-throat or 

 black speckled trout (salmo Clarkii), the mountain and western 

 brook trout (salmo purpuratus) and the rainbow or red-side 

 (salmo irideus) are really brook trout, since they are true trout 

 living in brooks, the so-called eastern brook or red-spotted trout 

 (salvelinus fontinalis) , which is not a native of our streams but 

 which is always referred to by that misnomer, is actually no trout 

 at all. He is a char. 



If you live in Portland some day after you have eaten your 

 lunch at noon, step over to First and Alder streets and observe 

 the trout in the tank in Constantine 's market. There, side by 

 side, you will see the native cut-throat and his eastern brother, 

 the brook trout. This fellow with his pink and gold spots, his 

 red belly and fins, and his peculiarly mottled back, is the fontinalis 

 or char. 



