64 
FOREST AND STREAM 
February, 1922- 
Ma AH® MOTH® 
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THE LAND OF THE GOLDEN TROUT 
GORGEOUSLY COLORED PLATES OF THIS FISH OF THE HIGH 
SIERRAS SEEM FLAT BY THE SIDE OF A FRESHLY CAUGHT SPECIMEN 
By C. M. KREIDER 
J IMMIE, on his first trip in the High 
Country, was busy dividing his at- 
tention between the lure of the sur- 
rounding peaks and the uncertainties 
of the trail. Our saddle horses were 
gentle and sure-footed, the two pack 
mules trailwise and careful ; yet he 
could not quite understand why one did 
not sometimes miss a step and slide 
down the canyon a thousand feet or so. 
Later, in a really bad pass, he rode with 
much aplomb where even the cowpunch- 
ers are accustomed to walk — and walk 
carefully. 
The surmounting of the steep, gravel 
ridge, which buttressed the main range, 
opened a new and more intimate view 
up our canyon to the high peaks. The 
trail smoothed out for a space, and 
Jimmie took the opportunity to look and 
exclaim. Still higher than we, but tilted 
for our inspection, were little bright 
green meadows, held in place by the 
thickly timbered ridges, back of w’hich 
rose the stark granite of the main crest, 
streaked here and there with patches of 
snow. 
The thin, sparkling line which left the 
lip of the lower meadow we knew to be 
our creek, took its first plunge down 
the canyon to lose itself in the desert 
a few miles below. Seven hours after 
leaving our car in the valley we un- 
packed on a smooth green lawn beside 
Cottonwood Creek, started a fire, and 
cooked things. 
After dinner, as we sat back to smoke 
and rig our tackle, we could, without 
m.oving, see a number of golden trout 
in a sunny stretch of shallow water a 
rod away. 
The animals were feeding contentedly 
in the lush meadow grass; we had fire- 
wood in plenty, and two bough beds left 
by an obliging cattleman, who had also 
built an elaborate stone fireplace. The 
breeze rustled gently through the tam- 
aracks. The mountains had us for a 
space. 
Jimmie landed his first golden near 
camp; it was only a ten-inch fish but, 
with shining eyes, he laid it on the sod 
for examination. 
The most experienced angler will do 
likewise, and assure you that the gor- 
geously colored plates in the book — 
which he had formerly examined with 
mental reservations — were decidedly too 
flat and colorless. 
These goldens were planted in Cot- 
tonwood Creek more than twenty years 
ago, and are really more richly colored 
than those we later took from Golden 
Trout Creek, formerly called Volcano 
Creek, their native stream. This also 
applies to the larger goldens in Cotton- 
wood Lakes, and to those in several 
other lakes and streams from which I 
have taken them. All of these waters, 
of course, w'ere planted with stock taken 
from Golden Trout Creek, the only 
known stream on this continent origin- 
ally habitated by them. 
Looking across Kern Lake 
The markings of the transplanted fish 
are substantially the same, but the col- 
ors are intensified; especially is this so 
of the golden strip which extends down 
each side, and of the bright orange of 
the belly and lower fins. It is as though 
an amateur, with his propensity for 
strong colors, had attempted to improve 
the delicate shades given the fish by the 
Master Artist. 
Whatever the natural condition which 
created the golden trout from its parent 
species, the rainbow, the above facts 
would tend to disprove the ancient be- 
lief that this one condition applies to 
Golden Trout Creek alone, so far as 
permanency of color is concerned. 
All the Sierra waters in which these 
fish have retained their original color- 
ing are located in high altitudes, where I 
bright granite gravel predominates, and ! 
these conditions are probably mainly re- | 
sponsible. 
Before sundown that evening we had | 
all the eight to eleven-inch trout we | 
could eat for supper and breakfast, and | 
we were fish hungry on this, our first j 
trip of the season. We fished perhaps j 
a quarter mile of meadow riffles and ^ 
swirling, shallow pools, and took them 
on dry flies. The Royal Coachman, as i 
always, seemed the favorite. 
These goldens, and those taken later 
in other waters, compared favorably 
with the rainbow in fighting ability, con- i 
sidering always the local conditions un- I 
der which individual fish were taken. 
They also displayed the usual preference 
of high altitude trout for rising best 
while the sun was upon the water. 
It was August first, and we had read i 
the thermometer at better than 100 de- ' 
grees in the valley the day before, but / 
that night we found it necessary to tuck i 
our blankets close against the frost. j 
""pHE next morning we packed up and 
leisurely followed the creek through 
the middle stringer meadows up to the i 
lakes. For three miles we were nearly I 
always in sight of the creek, and in i 
every open reach of water there were , 
dozens of goldens of average pan size; I 
further up there were large schools of ! 
minnows, plainly the season’s hatching. 
There are six lakes, and they lie in || 
a closely connected chain in a narrow 
basin surrounded by granite peaks. At 
that elevation of more than 10,000 feet 
the timber is scrubby and the nights are ^ 
cold, so we camped on the creek some 
distance below, amid a fine group of : 
foxtail pines. 
That afternoon we still-fished lake No. ' 
3 and took several fish up to fifteen | 
inches in length, all of which gave us ’ 
pretty fights on our very light fly tackle. ' 
We found helgramites best for bait, with - ^ 
the plebian salmon egg next. The fly | I 
purist would have scorned such fishing, 
no doubt; but we wanted fish — not for 
meat either- — as we put back, unhurt, 
most of them. I found, as on a previous 
trip, that these Cottonwood Lake goldens 
would not take the fly in any of the 
various manners presented to them. • 
