April 7, 1898.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



825 



THE TULLIBEE. 



THE Qu'Appelle River takes its rise about ten miles 

 southeast of the Elbow of the South Saskatchewan 

 River, and, after running almost due east through 250 

 miles of magnificent prairie land in the District of Assini- 

 boia, one of the western Territories of Canada, it empties 

 into the Assiniboine River at Fort Ellice, an old trading 

 post of the Hudson's Bay Company, which lies about 

 eight miles within the western boundary of the Province 

 of Manitoba. The Qu'Appelle is a small river and, like 

 a great many prairie streams, it goes dry or nearly so in 

 the summer months. 



About forty-five miles above the mouth of the Qu'Ap- 

 pelle River lies Round Lake, a small sheet of water 

 seven miles long and three-fourths in width, with an 

 average depth of Soft. Eleven miles further west is 

 Crooked Lake, eleven miles by one mile; its shores, 

 especially on the south side, are well wooded and, with a 

 number of points running out into the water, it is 

 very beautiful. Its average depth is 50ft. One hundred 

 and ten miles from the river's mouth are the far-famed 

 Qu'Appelle Lakes, a chain thirty miles in length, which, 

 beginning with the most eastern, are named respectively 

 Katepwe (Cree for "Who calls?"), Mission, Qu'Appelle, 

 Pasqua, Wyosung and Muskago, the last being a large 

 marsh, where magnificent duck shooting is to he had every 

 fall. Qu'Appelle Lake has the greatest depth, 75ft. , but the 

 first four mentioned are all deep, with clear cold water. 

 Thirty-five miles west of Muskago Lake is the mouth of a 

 creek, and five miles north lies Long Lake, a body of 

 water forty-eight mite3 long and averaging two miles 

 wide and 65ft. deep. The Qu'Appelle River runs through 

 all these lakes, except Long Lake, which drains into the 

 river, and the water is clear, and, in the 

 deeper lakes, cold and pure. All have 

 muddy bottoms, with sandy shoals, and 

 the shores are sandy and stony, with 

 large boulders here and there, Most of 

 the lakes have a number of strong springs 

 of cold water emptying into them from 

 the shores, and undoubtedly there are 

 many springs existing in the bottom, 

 which go far toward helping to keep 

 the water at a low temperature during 

 the very hot weather of summer. 



The varieties of fish, other than min- 

 nows, sticklebacks, etc., existing in the 

 QuAppelle River and its lakes, are two 

 kinds of whitefish (C. clupeiformis and 

 C. tullibee); pike (E. lacius), called jack- 

 fish, throughout the North wesr; picSerel 

 (dore, S. vitreum); perch (P. flavescens); 

 red horse (If. macrolepidotumy, common 

 sucker (C. commersoni); buffalo fish (J. 

 bubalus) and burbot (L. maculosa). 

 Although there are "gold eyes'* (Hyodon 

 chrysopsis) in the Assiniboine River, 

 there are none in the Qu'Appelle. 



The species to whicu I wish to draw 

 your attention is the tullibee, or, as it is 

 locally termed, "too-la-bee" or "too-na- 

 pee." The accompanying photograph* of a tullibee was 

 taken from a very fine specimen which was caught on 

 Feb. 4 last in a gill net, set under the ice in 40ft. of water 

 in Pasqua Lake. Its weight was 3£lbs., length extreme 

 18|in., depth extreme 5£in., thickness extreme 3in. A 

 tullibee and a whitefish of the same size laid side by side 

 will deceive most people who buy fish. The tins of the 

 tullibee have a more tapering and delicate appearance, 

 and its head a more nacreous iridescence than have those 

 of the whitefish. But it is the mouth that distinguishes 

 the tullibee from the whitefish, so far as external appear- 

 ance goes. In the whitefish the snout is blunt and sott, and 

 the upper jaw is longer than the lower; the snout of the 

 tullibee is broad, when looked at from above, but the pro- 

 file is acute, and the lower jaw is longer than the upper, 

 and both are prominent and bony. The mouth of the 

 whitefish has a small orifice, the tullibee'shasalarge one, 

 so that if you hold the fish up with the open mouth 

 toward you, uutil your eye is on a level with the lateral 

 line, you can see into the interior of the mouth, the out- 

 line of which is irregularly orbicular and of a greatest 

 diameter of lin. The superior maxillaries are very large, 

 and when the mouth is open, as in feeding at the surface, 

 they stand at right angles to the lateral line, projecting 

 slightly from the face so as to be the great cause of 

 death of this fish. When a tullibee comes in contact with 

 a net it naturally draws back, but finds that it is caught 

 by the twine, which has dropped behind the projecting 

 maxillaries; it begins to struggle, turning over and over, 

 only to entangle itself more inextricably. Sometimes, 

 however, it does succeed in escaping, leaving behind it a 

 knot 3 to 6in. in length, which is most difficult to 

 straighten out. It is owing to this peculiarity in its max- 

 illaries, its way of struggling to escape, as well as its shad- 

 like depth of body, that so many tullibee from 1 to 31bs. 

 in weight are caught in a 5 and Gin. extension-measure 

 gill net in company with whitefish of 6 and 81be. I have 

 seen tons of tullibee caught in gill nets of 5in. extension 

 measure and larger, the former being the smallest gilling 

 mesh allowed in the West by the regulations for the 

 taking of whitefish, tullibee and lake trout. 



The tullibee is found, as I have already stated, in all 

 the deeper lakes through which runs the Qu'Appelle 

 River, but, strange to say, not in Long Lake, the largest 

 of them all; it is also taken in the Eagle Quill lakes, three 

 small bodies of water lying about forty-five miles south 

 of the South Saskatchewan River and connected with it 

 by Swift Current Creek. Immediately to the north of 

 the .North Saskatchewan River are many hundreds of 

 deep lakes teeming with whitefish, lake trout, pike, 

 pickerel, sturgeon and other fish, and here, in some of 

 the lakes, we find the tullibee in immense numbers. In 

 this part of the country they are called "the small white- 

 fish." Inspector McQueen* of Manitoba, tells me that 

 they are plentiful in Lake Winnipeg, but the average 

 size is small; he has never seen any in lakes Manitoba 

 and Winnipegoosis, but some of the fishery overseers 

 report that they are to be found there. In the Lake of 

 the Woods Mr. McQueen says they are taken even 

 larger than the one whose photograph I have sent you. 

 In some of the lakes in the Rocky Mountains where I 



* instead of the excellent photograph we have reproduced a fine 

 drawing, by permission of Commissioner McDonald, from a speci- 

 men obtained in Manitoba by Mr. E. Or. Blackford for The U. S. 

 Fish Commission. 



found C. clupeiformis and O. williamsoni I met with and 

 heard of no tullibee. The edible qualities of the tullibee 

 range from fair to excellent, there being a great differ- 

 ence in this respect between the fish caught in different 

 lakes. In Pasqua Lake the quality is excellent, especially 

 in the winter, the flavor then being hardly distinguish- 

 able from that of the whitefish. In this lake they are 

 large, fat and plump and almost free from the creamy 

 white worms that are found in the fleshy part of the 

 back of the tullibee from other lakes to such an extent 

 as to render them quite uneatable to a great ma,nv people. 

 These parasites do not, however, appear to affect the 

 general health of the fish and are to be found in its flesh 

 at all timeB of the year. The flesh is beautifully white, 

 but greatly lacks the curd and richness, as well as the 

 flakiness and firmness of the whitefish. Split, slightly 

 salted and dried, and then given four or five hours in 

 smoke, they are delicious eating. When first drawn 

 from the water they have, in common with the white- 

 fish, the smell that has been likened to that of a fresh 

 cucumber. It is a most prolific fish. For years past the 

 Indians, half-breeds and Hudson's Bay Company's peo- 

 ple have been drawing large quantities of whitefish and 

 tullibee from our Western lakes. As soon as the fish 

 began to report to the shoals to spawn these people would 

 set their gill nets and would keep them set until the fish 

 returned to the deep water on the approach of very cold 

 weather. As the fish were caught a hole was made 

 through each at the base of the tail and they were strung 

 ten on a stick and hung head downward from a scaffold 

 for use in the winter. The result was that in many of 

 the smaller, and a number of the larger, lakes there are 

 very few whitefish left, but the tullibee are still fairly 

 plentiful; indeed, I know of lakes where there are no 



on the shoals. I have taken from the stomachs of pickerel 

 a considerable number of small tullibee, weighing from 

 4 to 16oz. each. The burbot (L. maculosa) are very 

 destructive; at spawning time they may be found with 

 their stomachs constantly distended with the ova of tulli- 

 bee and whitefish. The tullibee are often found in the 

 net torn and lacerated by the burbot, and fishermen have 

 told me that the latter are so greedy that they will allow 

 themselves to be drawn out on the ice rather than let go 

 their hold. The common sucker is a great spawn eater, 

 but in that respect thei'e is no fish that will eat more 

 spawn than the yellow perch, which is also one of the 

 most destructive to the fry of whitefish and tullibee, and, 

 in fact, all fish that are indigenous to these waters. 



The ducks, particularly bluebills, golden eyes and buf- 

 fleheads, get so fat on spawn in the fall that great num- 

 bers of them actually cannot fly unless there is a strong 

 wind blowing to assist them in rising from the surface 

 of the water. Of course, such food renders their flesh 

 scarcely eatable. 



Nearly all the fishing in this country is done with gill 

 nets, and in these vast quantities of tullibee, as well as 

 other fish, are taken. In the past in Assiniboia, and in 

 the North still, the tullibee were takfn in traps, built of 

 stones and brush across shallow places in the rivers and 

 smaller streams, when the water was low and the fish 

 were migrating upstream in May and down in Sep- 

 tember. 



Although the tullibee is not so good a table fish as the 

 whitefish, still its great prolificness and ability to with- 

 stand successfully the most murderous fishing, which 

 has often cleaned out the whitefish in a very few years, 

 and the peculiarity it undoubtedly possesses of being 

 able to thrive in very small .bodies of water, when the 

 latter is sweet and cool and contains the 

 necessary kinds and quantity of food, 

 seem to me to entitle this fish to some 

 attention from the fishculturist, the 

 probability being that it would turn out 

 a valuable addition to the list of fishes 

 suitable for transplanting. 



F. C. Gilchrist. 

 Fort Qu'AppELiiB Assa., N. W. T. 



THE BISBY CLUB. 



THE TULLIBEE. 



whitefish now, but the tullibee are netted in large 

 quantities. 



Ia the months of "January and February, the time of the 

 greatest cold in this country, the tullibee frequent the 

 deepest parts of the lakes. Their food at this time con- 

 sists almost entirely of shrimps or waterfieas, very small 

 mussels and a bright red jointed worm about three-quar- 

 ters of an inch in length, which they find in abundance 

 in the soft sticky mud at the bottom. They feed very 

 heavily at this season of the year and get very fat. The 

 fish remain in the deep water until the ice begins to get 

 rotten, when they gradually approach the shallower 

 water along the shores and at the mouths of the rivers 

 and streams, up which thpy often pass to other lakes 

 early in May; but in September they pass down stream. 

 Both the outlets and inlets of streams appear to be favorite 

 spots at this time of the year, as well as early fall, un- 

 doubtedly on account of the great abundance of food to 

 be found there, for their stomachs are gorged with it, and 

 it is now that the young of the crayfish form a large 

 portion of their diet. Later on, when the water has 

 reached its summer temperature, the tullibee will be 

 found back in the deep water again, and here they will 

 remain until early fall, apparently having as great an 

 aversion to warm water as have the whitefish. They run 

 in schools and toward evening in the summer it ia a pretty 

 sight to see them jumping, at times in play, but as often 

 after a fly or beetie upon the surface. They spring clear 

 of the water, making a qu«'ck, sharp splashing noise, and, 

 turning to one side or the other, disappear with a flip. I 

 have counted ten in the air at one time, looking like as 

 many gleams of silvery light, and they keep up their 

 antics all night long. 



In September they will again be found gradually near- 

 ing the shoal water, feeding heavily, and plump with fat 

 and the now swelling ovaries. Later on they appear to 

 eat little or nothing and devote all their time to playing 

 until about the 25th of October, when they have settled 

 down to the business of propagation, and have finished 

 by Nov. 10. They prefer shallow water close to shore 

 with clean sand to spawn on, and during the day they 

 may be seen in pairs and small schools poking along the 

 shores, but at night they come in thousands and keep up 

 a constant loud splashing and fluttering, very strange and 

 weird on a calm nigh t. Two years ago I carefully counted 

 the ova from a ripe fish, 2^lbs. in weight, and found there 

 were 23,700, closely resembling whitefish eggs in appear- 

 ance, but somewhat smaller. After spawning they are 

 very thin, lank and dull in color and quite unfit for 

 human food. 



In these lakes the whitefish (C. clupeiformis) do not 

 begin to spawn until Nov. 10 to 15. and have finished 

 about Dec. 5, but in Long Lake, only a few miles away, 

 and from which comes a great portion of the water that 

 supplies the Qu'Appelle River, they do not spawn until 

 late in November, and have not entirely finished until 

 early January. The pike eat numbers of tullibee, about 

 a pound in weight, at the time when the tullibee are in 

 the shallow water in the spring and fall, but as pike do 

 not go into the deep water to any great extent either in 

 winter or summer, the damage they do is comparatively 

 small; but the pickerel is, in my opinion, more destruc- 

 tive, because at the times when the tullibee are in the 

 deep water the pickerel are there also, and in the spring 

 and fall they may be found in company with the tullibee 



THE fourteenth annual report for the 

 year ending Jan. 31, 1892, an 

 nounces the following list of officers: 

 President, Richard TJ. Sherman; Vice- 

 Presidents, Jas. W. Husted and W. W. 

 Snow; Secretary, Thos. R. Proctor, 

 Utica; Treasurer, W. H. Boardman, 73 

 Broadway, New York; Legal Counsel- 

 lor, R. F. Wilkinson, Poughkeepsie. 

 Trustees — R. U. Sherman, H. Lee Bab- 

 cock, W. H. H. Wocster, Thos. R. 

 Proctor, R. W. Wilkinson, Wm. H. 

 Boardman. Executive Committee- 

 President, 1st vice-president, secretary, 

 treasurer and legal counsellor, ex- 

 officio. The membership now includes 

 twenty-four, and the limit is twenty-five. 



W e extract the following items of public interest : Food 

 has cost 65 cents per day; whole housekeeping $1.07 per 

 day. The number of visitors has been greater than in 

 any former year save one. 



The fishing in the club's waters was steadily good dur- 

 ing the whole season. The native Bisby trout has shown 

 as great abundance as in the early years of the club's 

 experience, and we have been rejoiced by the presence in 

 surprising numbers of the landlocked salmon, which 

 were artificially planted in 1889, and to which our waters 

 seem to be peculiarly adapted. At one year old these fish 

 appear of the almost uniform size of 8in. in length. In 

 the second year, 1891, they attained the length of 12in, 

 and the weight of one-half pound each, and according to 

 the natural rate of progression, we may look for them in 

 the next fishing season of the length of 14 and 15in., and 

 the weight of a pound each, and, what is quite as gratify- 

 ing as their rapid development, is the good game qualities 

 they show. 



They are given to range more freely than any other 

 variety of fish in our waters, and last year were taken in 

 every part of the lake, more often at the surface than at 

 the bottom, where our native salmon trout mostly abide, 

 and were ready at almost any hour of the day to take 

 either the fly, trolling tackle or cut fish bait. In the 

 evening they might be always seen disporting at the sur- 

 face, exhibiting their full length, and appearing as they 

 leaped upward from the water like lance heads of glisten 

 ing silver. 



Notwithstanding the large deposits of brook trout fry, 

 a falling off is observed in this species; the same is true 

 of the rainbow, brown trout and frostfish. The remedy 

 must be found in the rearing to the age of a year or more 

 of fry in artificial ponds, in which no predatory enemies 

 are present, and an ample supply of suitable food is fur- 

 nished daily. The construction of ponds for this purpose, 

 and for the further purpose of keeping stock fish for 

 breeding, was recommended last year, but no action was 

 taken on the recommendation, and it is renewed now in 

 the hope that it will receive the consideration it deserves. 



The product of the Bisby hatchery last season was: 

 Brook trout, 55,000; lake trout, 55,000; brown trout, 

 10,000; landlocked salmon, 17,000; frostfish. 250,000. 

 There were in the hatchery at the time of the repoi t 

 25,000 brook trout, 15,000 brown trout and 40,000 lake 

 trout. 



Chittenden Fish and Game League.— Rutland, "Vt., 

 March 26.— The sportsmen of Chittenden have organized 

 a branch club of the State League, known as the Chitten- 

 den Fish and Game Club. Its officers are: Pres., A. W. 

 BTlado; Vice-Pres., E. J. Perry; Sec'y, Edwin Horton; 

 Treas., N. D. Parker. There is also an executive com- 

 mittee of five members. Chittenden is in the heart of the 

 best fishing grounds of Rutland county. Five years ago 

 it would have been difficult to find more than one or 

 two inhabitants of the town who favored an enforcement 

 of the laws. A. W. Billado, the president of the club, is 

 an efficient fish warden; and it is due to his efforts that 

 the sentiment of Chittenden citizens has changed to favor 

 an enforcement of the laws. A few years ago a valu- 

 able cow, the property of Mr. Billado, was poisoned, 

 it was supposed, by one of the violators of the trout 

 law.— W. 



