ISO 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Feb. 13, 1897. 
Glorious old Elkhorn I Its raemoxies grow sweeter as the 
years go by and the music of Its rippling, sparblipg waters 
as they plash and sing over the shallows, or move placidly 
through the deep pools in their onward course from the 
Blue Grass Meadows down to the junction at the Forks, 
thence by the -wrecked dam at Steadmantown, on by the 
Barbecue Spring, by Indian Eock, by Knight's Bridge, 
through the sweep of Gault's Bend, on by the Meeting 
House Hole and Peak^s Mill, till they mingle wiih the waters 
of the Kentucky — this music will ever linger as the most 
enchanting of strains in memory when the limbs no longer 
'aiifiWer the call to wade their waters and when the tackle 
hot is a victim of neglect. Possibly by that time, to most 
of us, the dear old creek will have felt the cold hand of 
Utilitarian necessities, aided by the fish hog, the seiner and 
the dynaiaiter, and he in reality as in memory a dream of 
days that are done^ Oi^d Bam. 
ANGLING NOTES. 
American Trout !n Europe. 
Fob years past, in fact almost since their introduction 
abroad, the habits and characteristics of American trout, 
fontinalis and irideus, have been discussed in the angling 
papers of Europe. This discussion ha^ been intermittent, 
and recently it has received a fresh impetus, judging from 
what I have read, principally in the Fishing uasette. It is 
safe to say that neither of the trout, brook trout nor rainbow, 
is regarded as highly in England as is the common brook 
trout of Europe, the fish that we know as brown or Von 
Behr trout. Of our two fish, the preponderance of evidence 
in England seems to place the rainbow trout above the brook 
trout. In Germany also the rainbow is, I believe, con- 
sidered the better fish as a game fish. In this country, when 
the rainbow is brought from the Pacific slope and planted in 
Atlantic streams it is quite apt to disappear after the second 
year; and in Europe it is almost a universal complaint that 
our brook trout will do the same thing, a habit which is not 
true of the fish as a rule in home waters. 
Herr Jaffe is to day perhaps the foremost fish breeder in 
Germany, and he has sent me some notes in regard to our 
American trout in German waters, the results of his personal 
observations: 
"Rainbow trout; They do well iere up to the fifth and 
sixth year; they decay then rapidly. 
"Plantings of yearlings in the lower deep levels of big 
sluggish streams have turned out well. Also those of two- 
year-olds in highland lakes; fish of 2 to 51bs. have been taken 
after two years in both cases. 
"Rearing: In the year) ine and two-year-old stages blind- 
ness is rather frequent; the fish gets black and thick; next to 
no cases of blindness in the older stages. 
"It is a frequent occurrence that the rainbows spawn here 
in ponds with just a small intermittent water supply, say 
a small trickle, and that their numbers increase in such 
cases. 
"The great difficulty with the rainbow is the uncertainty 
of the egg crop. I have had cases of 10, 15 and up to 50 
per cent, loss among perfectly good looking ova, and I know 
of the same from others. Cases of glassy (hard, clear) ova 
on extrusion are not rare. 
"Chax {fontinalis) ; Rather subject ta intestinal inflam 
mation at spawnmg time, but the great difliculty is still the 
rearing of the fry. A rapid fall of temperature puts them 
oS the feed dangerously quickly. Egg loss as with the rain- 
bow; not impregnated." 
On a good many occasions I have, so far as was in my 
power, discouraged the planting of rainbow trout fry in the 
trout brooks of New York, simply because they disappeared 
from the streams, as a rule, after the second year; but during 
the past few years my opioionof the fish has changed materi- 
ally, or rather I have concladed that the failures were more 
owing to the manner of planting the fish than to the fish 
themselves; for there can be no question about the game and 
table qualities of the fish, for t bey rise well to the fly, and 
jump above the water when hooked, after the manner of the 
black bass, which our common brook trout do not, in spite 
of the pictures showing them in the air with fly in mouth 
Perhaps we do not fully understand the rainbow trout yet, 
but I am satisfied that when we do, and the fish is properly 
planted in suitable waters, we will have in New York a most 
desirable addition to our game fishes. 
The late Col. Marshall McDonald, U. S. Commissioner of 
Fisheries, told me that he had planted thousands of rainbow 
fry in the stream on which the Wytheville, Va., hatching 
station was situated, and they all promptly disappeared 
the second year; but when he planted yearlings of the same 
species in the same stream they remained, Now, it is en- 
tirely beyond my comprehension why yearlings should re- 
main and propagate and the fry should disappear when they 
reached the age of two years. In some few streams the fish 
have remained when planted in the fry stage, and that is 
evidence that if the waters suit them and food conditions are 
right for them they will remain. Of one thing I am satisfied, 
that they are not the fish for small mountain brooks, In one 
stream in Saratoga county a few big rainbows have been 
caught in the lower part of a stream where the water is 
deepest and of good volume. That they are not trout for 
small streams anywhere one will be convinced by looking at 
the fish at the Bath hatchery which were caught when run- 
ning up the hatching streams from the lake to spawn, for 
there are fish in the lot that weigh lOlbs. What Herr 
Jaffe says will be of interest and is evidence that if the rain- 
bow trout are planted in the deep, still portion of a stream 
there is reasonable hope of their remaining if they find food 
in abundance: 
"I can assure you that there is no gamer fish, nor any that 
will rise freer to the fly, than the rainbow The fish is in no 
way a competitor of the brook trout, and to plant it where 
the brook trout thrives would be doing the rainbow harm" 
("brook trout," as used by Herr Jaffe, means the brook trout 
of Europp, or brown trout as we know the fish on this side 
of the Atlantic). ' ' We have planted many thousands of them 
for trial in the upper shallow reaches of streams, and have 
always found the rainbow to slip down to the deep, slow 
reaches of the bigger streams, and to water generally too 
warm for brook trout. Htre they stay and grow, and we 
now only plant them in similar waters or in lakes and reser- 
voirs, which latter quarters they seem to like best. I have had 
them brought to me this autumn ('96)— a 3ilb. fish planted 
as a yearling in the spring of 1894, caught from the Ems, a 
river very much of the charactet of the Thames below Lon- 
don, but rather cleaner. 
' Rainbow trout, as a glance at the mouth of a full-grown 
fish Will lead one to expect, are nothing like as cannibalistic 
sls fontinalis or Levenensis" (the Loch Leven trout, which in 
this country cannot be distinguished from the brown trout 
[/anoj, and which Dr. Day believed to he identical with it), 
"but they require a deal of food and should not be turned 
out into barren waters. I have found them do best in deep, 
warmish reservoirs, with plenty of shellfish food and stic- 
klebacks, and here their growth is really good, J- to Jib. as 
two-year-olds, 3 to 31bs. as three year-olds, and 3 to 71bs. as 
four year-olds. At four years of age the rainbow seems to be 
fully matured, the growth afterward being small, although 
I have raised five year-olds of 131bs The peculiar thing 
about the rainbow is the extraordinary push they make be- 
tween the second and third years, jumping of (cn from i-lb. 
to 3 and 4ibs..in nine months; and what is more, the males 
do not grow at anythmg like such a rate as the femaies. 
"Rainbows, on the whole, are very well behaved fish and 
quarrel decidedly less than brook trout, but when closely 
confined in hig numbers and not carefully sorted they will 
of course develop cannibalistic tendencies. 
"In one of my breeding ponds, of about one acre surface, 
I keep three and four generations of rainbows tofi;ether with- 
out any thought of cannibalism developing, a thing I would 
not venture on with fontinalis; but they have much room 
and plenty of food." 
During the past year several waters in the State have been 
planted with yearling rainbow trout, acting upon the prin- 
ciple advocated by Herr Jaffe, although his letter had not 
then been received; but ex.perience seemed to point to lakes 
and the lower portions of big streams as the proper waters 
for this fish, but it will be a few years before the results will 
be known positively. If the rainbow can be established 
in waters easily accessible, where they take the fly readily, 
the lerritory for sporting fish can be doubled. Superintend- 
ent James Annin, of the Fisheries, Game and Forests Com- 
mission, is a firm believer in these fish, and as he is an ac- 
complished fly fisherman he knows a game fish as well as 
any one in the State. 
Fish Plantinsr. 
A letter came to me early in January which 1 put aside to 
quote from in this column, as it shows more than ordinary 
interest in the work of stocking waters with food fish, and 
an earnestness in the work which can be followed with 
profit by others who desire to establish the salmon family in 
fished out streams. The letter is written from Middletown, 
N. Y. : 
"I made an effort last year to stock the Wallkill River 
with wall-eyed pike, planting 50,000. I think with a little 
effort we can make a success of it, as I now have quite a 
number of our local sportsmen interested in the undertaking. 
One of our local fishermen brought me for identification 
about Nov. 1 a couple of wall-eyed pike caught while taking 
bait fish, which were about 6in.'long. This makes me feel 
that the planting will be a success. 
"I have tried for four years to stock the Little Shawangunk 
with brown trout, and have, I feel confident, at last suc- 
ceeded. Last spring for the first time I kept my fry in a 
small spring pond, and this fall I had trout 4in. long, which 
I turned loose into the stream in November — about 4,000, I 
think. I am convinced that no fry .should be turned loose to 
shift for themselves until they are big enough to hustle for 
their own food. 
"1 think all streams could he more successfully stocked 
were this method adopted by the State; plant nothing but 
yearling-', and I don't believe the cost would be any more, if 
so much." 
No one will dispute t{iat streams can be more successfully 
stocked with yearling fish than with fry, but when my cor- 
respondent says the cost would not be any more, if as much, 
provided the State adopted this method, I fear he does not 
understand the situation. During the past fiscal year the 
Slate distributed 144,985 trout between the ages of eight 
months and eighteen months, and that certainly is a begin- 
ning in the right direction, and on Sept. 30 there were nearly 
200,000 fingerling trout at the different hatching stations 
being reared to yearlings ; so I can safely say fhe Stat j has 
adopted this method so far as it can at present, for I find 
from looking at the reports of the old Fish Commission, pre- 
vious to the organization of the consolidated Commission of 
Fisheries, Game and Forests, that no yearling fish were reared 
for planting in public water, except 150 sea salmon, If any 
one thinks that 100,000 yearlingtrout can be reared as ch.eaply 
as 100,000 fry they forget that fry are planted as soon as they 
are ready to feed, and that the rearing of yearlings practi- 
cally dates from that time, and thereafter for twelve months 
the young trout must be fed and cared for daily. But it is 
not the cost of the food nor wages of the attenaants that are 
the chief obstacles to overcome in rearing yearling trout; it 
is loom and water. Only a portion of the hatching stations 
can rear yearling fish, and at these stations all the space and 
all the water is being utilized as rapidly as the means of the 
Commission will permit to this end. A certain amount of 
the water supply must be devoted to the stock fish, or there 
would be no fry or flngerlings; and the space and water that 
will accommodate and support a given number of fiugerlings 
(fish of eight mouths) will not accommodate and support 
half that number of yearlings, so that there is a limit at each 
station to the number that can be received to become 
vigorous, healthy fish. Overcrowding will be fatal to 
the whole crop. If yearlings cannot be reared in per- 
fect htalth, it is far better to plant the fry Anyone 
who will visit one of the hatching stations of the State, and 
observe the space required and ihe water necessary to raise 
a few thousands of jearlmgs in health, will not won- 
der that all the millions of trout hatched by the State 
are not reared to yearlings, and will see that it would be a 
physical impossibility at present. For instance, at the 
Pleasant Valley hatchery every gallon of water is utilized, 
and the capacity of the hatchery — stock ponds, hatching 
trough and rearing boxes — would not be as great as it is if 
it were not that the water is thoroughly aerated by artifioid) 
means. The plan mentioned by the correspondent can be 
followed to advantage by applicants for trout fry, and the 
fry reared in a small pond on the food found in the water if 
it is not overstocked. Such a pond should be constructed 
on a tributary stream to the stream to be stocked, and 
screened to prevent the escape of the fish, The trout will 
have many enemies (one snake was killed at Caledonia with 
sixty-four joung trout inside of it) and there will be loss of 
fry under most favorable circumstances, but those remain- 
ing in the fall will more than repay the care and expense, 
particularly if the pond is used as a rearing pond each year. 
A fritnd in Vermont was most successful with a pond of 
this description, and his contributions to the main stream 
from his. rearing ponds were important factors inrestockirg 
it. The question of food foi the fish in any stream must 
not be overlooked, as it will be useless to rear yearlings or 
flngerlings if the food supply in the planted water is inade- 
quate. A. N. Cheney. 
AS TO CARP AND OTHER THINGS. 
St. Louis, Jan. 30. — 1 have noted at various times articles 
in Forest and Stream and in oth-;r papers telling of the 
destructive habics of the baltalo and of tne carp with refer- 
ence to the soawn of other fishes There has been in the 
Chicago Tribune a number of communications telling how 
these fish have prevented the increase in game fish through 
the destruction of spawn. 
Very lively the writer himself has made just such objec- 
tions to the introduction of the carp, but on tliiuking the 
matter over he has at)Out concluded that the carp and buffalo 
are scapegoats for other criminals. I am informed by the 
old settlers in this section that when they first came here the 
abundance of the buffalo was something enormous, and stocks 
at the present day do not compare at all with those of that 
period. They also state that the quantity of game fish exist- 
ing in the same water with the buffalo was immensely larger 
than at present, and that no one ever imagined that the pres- 
ence of the buffalo was destructive to the existence of game 
fish The characteristics of the carp and buffalo are so 
closely related and their habits are so similar that one may 
well doubt whether these fish are the cause of extinction of 
the game fisnes ; may it not be that they are the effect and 
not the cause; that they multiply and occupy the waters 
formerly occupied by the game fi^h which have been de- 
stroyed by the persistent and evcrlaslin!; fishing of the mar- 
ket fisherman and his twin brother, the city fish hog. 
This naturally brings up the subject of game protection, 
and 1 am pleased to note that an effort will be made at the 
present session of our Legislature to have the game laws so 
amended as to be really effective in the way of protection. 
A bill has been introduced which provides for an annual 
license of $1 to all parties who fl^h or hunt The fund thus 
collected is to go to defray the expenses of fish wardens. An 
appropriation from the State will also be asked for to enforce 
the law. 
The present extreme cold weather will also do something 
toward preserving the fish supply, as all the livers, lakes and 
sloughs are firmly frozen over. The extremely warm 
weather up to last week had enabled the net fishermen to 
pursue their business without any hindrance except from 
high water. It is a good thing nature does her share 
toward the protection of our fish, or the supply would soon 
become exhausted. Aberdeen. 
A PICKEREL STOCKING EXPEDITION. 
Far up on the summit of one of the roughest and most 
jagged peaks of the Bearfort range of mountains, in the 
northern part of Passaic county, N. J,, 1,400ft. above sea 
level, stands the handsome and commodious club house of 
the Orean Park Association, with 33,000 acres of adjoin ng 
club land peculiarly adapted to a fish and game preserve. 
Here, four miles from the nearest habitation, four gsime 
wardens of the State of New Jersey held forih during the 
third week in November. Their mission was to net the 
Clinton and Oak Ridge reservoirs t j obtain pickerel with 
which to restock Greenwood Lake, and thus infuse new 
blood in the much inbred and deteriorated fish of that beau- 
tiful lake. The wardens were known to one another as 
Handy Shot, Riley Water, Kersey and Nantuck They 
were accompanied by the commodore of a large two-horse 
truck, whose business was to navigate the steep mountain 
roads, transporting the nets and fish cans from one point to 
another, and who was dubbed Lay Low Punk. 
The first day's work at the Clinton reservoir amounted to 
little, only a few yellow perch, suckers and several thousand 
chub being captured; these fish being deposited in Cedar 
or Orean Lake, a pretty expanse of water several hundred 
acres in extent in front of the association's c'ub house. 
When the day's catch had been deposited in the lake, a 
good, warm supper, prepared under the s^illiul direction of 
Mrs. Post, the lady of the house, was enjoyed, and the war- 
dens gathered around the huge fireplace, where blazing 
white birch logs gave forth both light and heat. 
The gray light of the new morn was j ist showing in the 
eastern sky when a yell ttiat would have done credit to a 
Comanche' Indian awoke the sleeping wardens. A prep 
through the window showed the form of Riley Water 
standing on the great rock in front of the house, waving his 
arms and shouting that the lake was covered with wild 
geese. The yell had the effect of bringing all the male in- 
habitants to the spot, but the only evidence of geese was 
Riley Water's word. Lay Low Punk made a tour of in- 
spection along the dam, but upon his return tapped his 
head and, pointing to Riley Water, said "Daft." 
When the morning meal of wild honey and buckwheat 
cakes had been stored away, the start was made for Oak 
Ridge reservoir, eight miles distant. A stop was made at 
Clinton reservoir to pick up the nets used the day before, 
and a flat-oottom boat, the only one in the neighborhood, 
was placed on Corneel's wagon and properly lashed for the 
ride over the steep mountain roads. 
Upon arrival at the Oak Ridge reservoir and a suitable 
shore being found, the nets were unloaded and a haul w .s 
made, with only one little pickerel and several sunfish for 
the result. It was decided that the fish had taken to deep 
water, and the big State net, designed to fish in 15Et. of 
water, was got in readiness. The net was cast and both 
ends had been landed, and bets were being made upon the 
number of fish that would be caught, when the cork line be- 
gan to sink, indicating that the net had caught in some ob- 
Btruction. 
Corneel declared that the bottom was formerly cleared 
farm land and he could not understand what held the net 
unless it v\ as an old line fence. 
Sjuodiogs were taken and it was learned that the net was 
held by the lOOts of a stump in 13ft. of water. Carneel 
then remembered the existence of an old apple orchard in 
that vicinity, but supposed that the old roots had been re- 
niioved. 
The wardens, wet to the skin, labored uatil the middle of 
the afternoon in a vain attempt to release the net. and thee 
abandoned it, hoping that on the morrow, with the aid of 
chisels attached to poles, the roots migut be cut away and 
the net saved intact. 
The detection of Handy Shot waving his handkerchief at 
a short, stubby cedai- tree in a distant field, which he bad 
mistaken for a buxom female, caused a iittle merriment and 
somewhat lightened the feelings wxiich had become glooiny 
on account of the ili luck of the day. 
Dry ciothes and a wirm supp r griatly raised the spirits 
of tne boy.^, and the programme, airanged before the big 
fireplace after a pipeful of tobicco, was early to bed and 
early to rise for the morrow's work. 
And bright and early it was that work was commenced 
