186 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 20, 1904. 
fry have been planted — over a million a year— and yet 
the catch of 1903 was less than that of 1874, before the 
hatching house was started. Had Mr. Samuels not de- 
clared that nothing that can be said will cause him to 
change his opinion, I might hope that facts and figures 
would outweigh such mere hearsay stories as he has 
retailed in his last letter. The Old Angler. 
Sussex, N. B. 
Fish and Fishing. 
Vice-Regal Sport in Canada. 
Nearly all the Governors-General of Canada for many 
years past have been ardent sportsmen. Salmon fishing 
in the Dominion has had few warmer adherents than 
Lords Dufferin, Lome, Stanley, Aberdeen, and Minto. 
His Execellency the Earl of Minto, the present Governor- 
General, is not only himself a well-known sportsman, 
but belongs to a family of anglers, one member of which, 
who bore the title now carried by the Governor-General, 
was the author of an interesting work entitled, "Game, 
Salmon and Poachers," which was printed for private 
circulation in London in 1863. Like most other salmon 
fishermen in Canada during the present summer, the 
Earl of Minto had rather poor sport on the Cascapedia. 
Since his return, however, His Excellency has more than 
made up for the disappointment attending his salmon 
fishing by the excellent sport which he has enj oyed along 
the line of the Quebec and Lake St. John Railway. 
Upon this trip His Excellency was accompanied by the 
Countess of Minto and family, and also by the members 
of. -the vice-regal staff, making a party of eleven, all of 
whom were accomplished anglers. The party accepted 
the: hospitality of the club house and preserved waters of 
the Tourilli Fish and Game Club, intending to remain 
upon ,the territory for a fortnight. The stay was limited 
to ..six days, however, in consequence of His Excellency 
being recalled to Ottawa for the closing of Parliament. 
During their stay the total catch of the party was 22 
dozen of trout, some of them of very respectable size. 
The flies that were found most successful were the Jock- 
Scot, Parmachenee-belle, coachman, professor, and 
Coch-y-bondhu. The members fished quite a wide ex- 
panse of water, both in the Ste. Anne River and in the 
series of lakes drained into it, and intend to pay another 
visit to the territory in the month of September. 
Ouanaoiche in August. 
Lean fully corroborate the statement made by Mr. Bab- 
son, that the ouananiche in Lake St. John will strike at 
a spoon or spinner in the month of August, even more 
readily than at a fly, and have already had occasion to 
point out, as he does,, the absurdity of expecting any fish 
to-do himself full justice as a fighter with a gang of 
hooks widely distending his open jaws. And besides, 
there is seldom the slightest necessity for the use of so 
murderous a device by those who desire to kill 
ouananiche. It is true that in August, as, in fact, in 
almost every other month of the season, these fish will 
rise more freely at a spoon or spinner in Lake St. John 
than to a fly. But the same is true of #but when fished 
for, not only in large bodies like Lake St. John, but also 
in lakes of very much smaller size. The angler has only 
to follow the ouananiche out of the lake into the lower' - 
portions of the Grand Discharge to meet with success in 
his 4 fly-fishing for the fresh-water salmon, just as trout 
which refuse to take the fly in midsummer in the middle 
of large lakes, will ofteri afford the finest sport in the 
month of August when found in the rivers which form 
the discharges of large bodies of fresh water. 
Both the editorial remarks upon the first page of the 
number of Forest and Stream for the 6th of August, 
and the -letter of Mr. W. B. Mershon, on another page of 
the same issue, have to do with the scarcity of salmon 
during the present season, which has already formed the 
burden of portions of my own contributions to this 
column. There have been so many complaints upon this 
score that I have been at some pains to collect all possi- 
ble .information on the sub'ect. I am sorry to have to 
report that there appear to have been scarcely any ex- 
ceptions to the rule. The usual report from salmon rivers 
is that the catch of fish has been only one-third to one- 
half of the average, while in some instances it has been 
even smaller. I have heard of very many anglers who 
fared just as badly as Mr. Mershon and his friends did. 
The chief exceptions occurred upon the Moisie and the 
Godbout rivers on the north shore and on the Grand 
River, which enters into the Baie des Chaleurs, and even 
these favored streams yielded far less fish than usual., I 
have reports from every tributary of the Saguenay, and 
find a large falling off, not only in the catch by rod and 
line, but also in the number of fish taken in the nets of 
the Government hatchery at Tadoussac at the mouth of 
the Saguenay. ' In the St. Jean, which was fished by its 
proprietor, Mr. William Price, and also by Sir George 
Carrington, Mr. Dwight and Canon Evans, not more 
than two or three fish fell to each rod. Even less success 
was obtained upon the Mars River: The Little Saguenay 
yielded, a single fish. The illness of a friend having pre- 
vented me from fishing on the south shore this summer, 
I spent the first four days of August upon Eternity 
River, 5 a third tributary of the Saguenay. Only one sal- 
mon fell to my rod, though a brother who accompanied 
me was fortunate enough to kill three. Notwithstanding 
the lateness of the season, we should probably have done 
better had we been able to visit the river a week or even 
a fortnight earlier. The river is a short one, and be- 
cause of the late date at which the fish entered it this 
year, they lost but little time in ascending to its upper 
waters, and were consequently not in a rising humor 
when found by- us.. - -It; 1 was well on in July before any 
fish were seen in the river, and by the middle of the 
month they -had only run six miles up the stream. 
The Ste. Marguerite,' which is the best and the largest 
of the Saguenay rivers, has proved a dismal failure this 
year. The members of the Ste. Marguerite Salmon Club 
who visited the preserve had about the worst season on' 
record, and Mr. W. M. Brackett, of Boston, who fished 
his branch of the river from the opening of the season to 
the last of July, only killed seven fish in all. 
Some weeks ago, in this column, I expressed the be- 
lief that there would be a later run of salmon this year 
than usual, and so far as the Eternity and some other 
rivers are concerned, this has already proved to be the 
case. Out of the four hundred salmon taken in the nets 
at the mouth of the Saguenay for the Government 
hatchery at Tadoussac up to the 6th of August, less than 
half of the number had been taken during the first two 
months of the netting. It was necessary to obtain special 
authority from Ottawa to permit the nets to be set for a 
longer period than usual, and yet the number of parent 
fish taken is much less than usual. Mr. Catellier, the 
superintendent of the hatchery, has a theory of his own 
respecting the scarcity of the fish. He believes that the 
absence of easterly wind has had much to do with the 
failure of the fish to reach their rivers, there having been 
only one day of easterly wind in the St. Lawrence since 
the month of May. He says that the fish are even now 
running up into their spawning rivers, and that many 
more will still run up and deposit their spawn. The en- 
tire Canadian season has undoubtedly been an exceed- 
ingly backward one, and the lowness of the water in 
many of the salmon rivers during the early summer may 
well have tended toward keeping the fish out. But if, 
indeed, there has not been any very great diminution in 
the supply of spawning fish, there is no doubt that the 
requirements of nature and the force of natural instinct 
will compel the salmon to yet overcome all obstacles to 
their entrance and ascent of the rivers. It may well be 
that they may in some cases be prevented from entering 
their parent streams, but those upon whom the instinct 
of procreation is strong, will eventually ascend some 
stream in which the ripening and subsequent deposit of 
the spawn will follow. 
There are some people who seem thoroughly con- 
vinced that the falling off in the take of salmon is en- 
tirely due to the enormous destruction of the fish, both 
young and adult, owing to the large increase in the num- 
ber of its natural foes in salt water. Porpoises, seals, 
and dogfish— more especially the latter, have multiplied 
amazingly of late years, and while the dogfish have 
scarcely created much havoc among the mature fish, they 
have probably destroyed immense quantities of smolt and 
grilse, while the dangers which attend the return of the 
adult salmon to its parent stream are materially greater 
in consequence of the vastly increased number of por- 
poises and seals now reported in the Gulf and Lower St. 
Lawrence, and upon the Atlantic seaboard of the 
Canadian Provinces. 
In connection with the dogfish scourge, it is interest- 
ing to note that the Hon. Mr. Prefontaine, Dominion 
Minister of Fisheries, has changed his mind in regard to 
the proposed bounty upon this fish, and has decided ' in- 
stead to erect three reduction works on . the American, 
plan. These will be placed at various points along, the 
Atlantic Coast. One will be in Cape Breton, one in New 
Brunswick, and the other on the coast of Gloucester 
county. They are to cost $9,000 each, and the Govern- 
ment will, itself operate the plants, paying the fishermen 
a good. price for their fish . offal; "and for all . the dogfish 
they., can. bring in, converting them into fertilizer and 
glue. The Government is satisfied that the venture" can 
be made to yield a satisfactory profit, and believes that 
the price to be paid for dogfish and the desire of the 
fishermen themselves., to be rid of the nuisance, will be in- 
.cehtive enough t%':them to keep the reduction works sup- 
plied with all the~ material they require. 
It remains to b'e> seen whether the destruction of the 
dogfish will make much difference in the supply of sal- 
mon. There, is 'something that the Canadian Government 
.might do, however;, that most certainly would have an 
important bearing upon the supply of this fish, and that 
is to very materially decrease the amount of netting em- 
ployed in the taking of salmon in the Gulf and Lower 
St. Lawrence and the Baie des Chaleurs, and in the 
estuaries of the different salmon rivers. 
E. T. D. Chambers. 
Colorado Streams. 
Denver, Colo., Aug. 12.— W. C. Thomas, assistant 
cashier of the First National Bank, and Alfred Williams, 
a local wholesale cigar man, both expert anglers, elected 
to spend their vacation among the trout of Lake San 
Cristobal, in Hinsdale county. This is a little jog of 350 
miles from Denver, and is reached by the Rio Grande 
road. The lake is of seismic origin, nestling in the 
crater of an extinct volcano. It is encompassed by peaks 
several hundred feet high; numerous sharp-pointed 
islands dot. the bosom of its deep waters. Being away up 
in the clouds, it is an ideal place for recreation, and the 
two brain workers made the most of their leisure. The 
lake is three by one mile in dimension, and is said to 
be bottomless. A sound 750 feet long failed to touch bot- 
tom. Native, rainbow, and eastern brook trout abound, 
and they do not mind how big they grow. Fly-fishing 
from a boat is the proper caper; it costs $1.50 a day for a 
good oarsman and boat. Good day board was obtained 
for $1 a day, with the privilege of bunking in the miners' 
bunk-house without charge. Both gentlemen had a splen- 
did time, and brought home numerous fine specimens of 
three and four-pound rainbow, native, and eastern brook 
trout. They are particular, however, to, convey the in- 
formation that the run of trout in these cold, almost 
glacial, waters is about one pound. These trout are 
great fighters ; there are plenty of them, too, as the place 
is hardly ever visited, there being no accommodations for 
the effete brand of angler. But for him who is looking 
for" sport and roughing it, this is an ideal spot. Catches 
of the limit and even more may be made daily. 
At Sapinero, on the big waters of the Gunnison, the 
place where Judge McDougal, of Gunnison, loves best to 
draw big minnows for ten-pounders, I get a report of a 
catch of a 6 l / 2 and a 7-pound rainbow by a gentleman and 
wife from Delta. Mr. Thomas, above referred to, saw 
the catch, but failed to get the name of the anglers. 
Fishing in glacial waters must be great sport. J. X. 
Miles, a Denver taxidermist, and a party of residents of 
Sunset, last week pushed their way to the crystal sheet 
of water at the top of Arapahoe Peak in Grand county, 
and made out to stop there several days. The lake is 
fed hy the greatest glacier of the entire Rocky Mountain 
system, and is Just at timber line, 13,000 feet high. The 
glacier lies just above the lake in plain sight. The water • 
is full of trout, but on account of the prevalence of 
storms of one sort or another, it is difficult to make a. 
large catch. The run is about one pound ; rainbows, 'na- 
tives, and German browns. Mr. Miles brought home 
several and mounted them for display. Few, if any, trout 
in the whole State are so beautifully and distinctly 
marked as these. He says a one-pounder in this cold 
water fights like an average three-pounder of the lower 
altitudes. Although a hardened mountain climber and 
seasoned hunter, Mr. Miles got enough of this trip in 
less than a week. He had snow and sleet storms and 
tornadoes and hurricanes every hour of the day. One 
afternoon when the wind was propitious he killed nine- 
teen pounds, consisting of eighteen trout, in less than 
one hour. 
R. D. Sanborn, of Greeley, went to North Park to 
look at some coal lands last week. At Candrey, on; the 
Laramie River, he stopped ''for half a day and angled 
with great success." His catch for six .hours rounded 
out the century mark. As the trout in this stream aver- 
age better than half a pound each, Mr. Sanborn might feel 
embarrassed to tell what his catch weighed. Game war- 
dens are looking for such as he. It is such vandalism 
as this that wrecks fine fishing streams" like the Big 
Laramie. When I was there three years ago it was easy 
to fill a 20-pound creel with one and two-pounders in; an 
hour. 
A friend encamped at Iola on the Gunnison writes me 
to "come down right away quick and bring nothing but 
midge flies. Trout are plentiful and fl.y-fishing is getting 
better every day. Just landed one that measured 23 
inches in length, another 17 inches long and several over 
15." This gentleman is a member of a prospecting party 
who are outfitted for a trip as far south as Chihuahua, 
Mexico; there are half a dozen of them and they have a 
whole year of outing before them. 
Natives and. guides of the entire Gunnison country— 
and that's almost as big as New York State — are lying 
awake nights making plans to get next to G. Cleveland 
and a party alleged to be on their way theither to tackle 
some of the "big ones." It is also alleged, with much de- 
tail, that a special representative of an eastern newspaper 
is to accompany the ponderous angler and chronicle his 
every act. Fishing on the Gunnison is entirely different 
from the Buzzard's Bay brand. On the Gunnison one is 
either, tumbling, rolling, catching and slipping over 
roundly-eroded stones, or up to his neck in icy cold 
water.' The supply of clinker-built boats is mighty 
limited, but Mr. Cleveland will find a big welcome await- 
ing him, and will be shown the sport of his life. 'Twquld 
be great fun to see Grover and Judge McDougal— they 
are of a size and erected on the same keel with a dis- 
placement pretty nearly equal— up to their armpits, in the 
dark cold pools of and about Sapinero. Judge McDougal 
"strings" his catch in a sugar sack, but he has never 
explained to me how he keeps on such good terms with 
the game wardens — and himself, a true-blue sportsman. 
Maybe he doesn't believe everything he tells. 
_ Fifty thousand trout fry were placed in the Big 
Thompson near Loveland last week. Colorado is doing 
great work in keeping up the supply of trout in all her 
streams and the expense is larere. It is estimated that a 
revenue of $15,000 will be netted from the sale of hunting 
licenses this year, and it will be expended in planting 
young, fry in the streams.. In addition to this other 
funds are required to meet the heavy expenditures made 
in sustaining the hatcheries. J. D. C. 
The Golden Trout, 
Washington, D. C, Aug. 13.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: What promises an unexplored field to the fish- 
culturist and a new delight to the angler, has been dis- 
covered in the golden trout of Southern California. Dr. 
Barton W.-Evermann, assistant in charge of the Division 
of Scientific Inquiry of the Bureau of Fisheries, with a 
corps of scientists, has just returned from an investiga- 
tion concerning this famous trout. Dr. Evermann is very 
enthusiastic over the results of the expedition, ,and be- 
lieves he has found a fish that so far is unequalled in 
beauty and one that will, when introduced into eastern 
waters, attract the angling fraternity more than any other 
game fish known. 
The attention of the Commissioner of the Bureau of 
Fisheries was- called to this beautiful species by the 
President. Stewart Edward White, author of "The 
Blazed Trail," etc., in traveling through Southern Cali- 
fornia, was impressed by the beauty and gameness of the 
golden trout, and called it to the President's attention, 
suggesting that some steps be taken for its ; preservation, 
as it was liable to extermination on account of its ex- 
tremely restricted habitat. The President sent a letter to 
the Commissioner of the Bureau of Fisheries asking that 
an investigation be made to determine what steps should 
be taken for its preservation. Commissioner Bowers im- 
mediately sent a party of scientists with Dr. Evermann 
at the head to study the waters of the Mt. Whitney 
region, and report on the habits and distribution of this 
trout, and to suggest steps which might be taken toward 
introducing the species in other waters with a view to its 
cultivation and artificial propagation. 
.The fish is allied to the common rainbow trout, but is 
distinctly different in many respects, particularly in 
size of scales and color. The general color is a light yel- 
low, with a rich cadmium band along the belly and a 
similar one on each side. It differs also from the com- 
mon trout in the absence of spots except at the tail. It is 
a decidedly gamy fish, and of delicious flavor, qualities 
that enhance its value both as a food fish and its interest 
to the sportsman. The adult fish attains a length of 12 to 
14 inches, and on an average weighs something less than 
a pond. 
The investigating party traveled three weeks in the 
vicinity of Mt. Whitney exploring the streams of that 
region, and were further rewarded by the discovery of 
three or four new species, one of them approximating 
the beauty of the golden trout of Volcano Creek, The 
golden trout, the primary object of the expedition, was 
found to exist originally only in Volcano Creek, a tribu- 
tary of Kern River. A few years ago it was introduced 
into Cottonwood Creek, tributary to Owen Lake on the 
east side of the mountains. 
• The problem of introducing this fish in other waters 
and its artificial propagation is at present occupying the 
attention of the Bureau of Fisheries-,' and every effort will 
be made for its successful cultivation. The Bureau will 
