FINS, FEATHERS AND FUR 
5 
Cisco Fishing Injurious to Trout 
By Claus C. Monker, Grand Marais, Minnesota 
The writer is not fishing for the sport there 
is in it, but for what mjoney he can make, or 
what would be more proper, the living there is 
in it. It will be but natural then, that the 
commercial end of fishing be discussed in this 
article, and confined more particularly to t'he 
north shore of Lake Superior. In these times 
of 'high prices on foodstuffs, it may interest 
the reader to hear something from one who 
helps to catch and prepare for the market a food 
article of no small value to the consumer. 
Lake Superior is a large body of fresh water, 
held to be the largest in the world, and at one 
time had in it what was thought to be an in¬ 
exhaustible supply of fish. The writer well re¬ 
members when fish were so plentiful that with 
the same amount of nets used today by one 
fisherman, but a few years ago several men 
would be required to take care of the catch. 
In those days only w'hitefish and trout were 
the recognized marketable fish of Lake Super¬ 
ior; today the w'hitefish is extinct so far as the 
north shore is concerned and trout has dimin¬ 
ished to such an extent, that most of the fish¬ 
ermen who fished nothing else at the time men¬ 
tioned, have quit trout fishing as a non-paying 
business, and in place have gone into the fish¬ 
ing of herring. 
The federal government long since recog¬ 
nized the fact that fishing on Lake Superior 
would soon be a thing of the past, and to help 
prolong it, established fish hatcheries at vari¬ 
ous points on the lake. 
The question may arise, does this really pay? 
What return do we get from this outlay? You 
may well raise the question. The money ex¬ 
pended is money derived from taxation in one 
way or another; it is your money spent. It is 
a well established fact that stocking streams 
and lakes is a decided sucess. To some extent 
this is also true of Lake Superior and with 
some needed legislation prohibiting certain sizes 
of mesh used and closed season for fishing, it 
is not impossible to increase the supply of fish 
to a marked extent. The fishermen themiselves, 
commence to realize that somethng must be 
done in order to perpetuate the fishing indus¬ 
try on this greatest of all unsalted seas. But 
little attention until recently has been paid to 
the regulation of fishing in Lake Superior by 
our legislators, more from lack of adequate in¬ 
formation than from anything else, and fisher¬ 
men in general were kicking merely because 
the fish were “playing out,” unconscious of the 
fact that we ourselves, by unwise methods of 
fishing, were to a large extent the cause of the 
“playing out.” 
As is well known, Lake Superior is an inter¬ 
national, as well as interstate, water. To ob¬ 
tain a uniform law governing this industry with 
a view of conservation, the government of Can¬ 
ada, in conjunction with that of our own, could 
likely accomplish this much-needed legislation 
more adequately than the bordering states, and 
the province of Ontario could, but under pres¬ 
ent circumstances and conditions, obstacles pre¬ 
sent themselves, making this next to impossible. 
Thus, we of Minnesota, did, at the last session 
of the legislature, make an effort to bring about 
a law to regulate fishing in Lake Superior, so 
far as our shores were concerned, and it is to 
be hoped that other states will take the matter 
up in the same manner. It s'hould be of vital 
interest to everybody, consumer and producer 
alike, to use this great lake not as a mine, but 
rather as a farm. 
Time and space will not permit to go into 
details, only the most vital can be mentioned at 
this time. 
Among the provisions of the bill passed by 
our legislation last winter, it was stipulated 
no smaller than two and one-half (2D inch 
stretched mesh for trout. It was also provided 
that two and five-eighths (2§) inch stretched 
nnesh may be used for catching ciscoes, a small 
deep-water fish, somewhat like herring, and that 
such nets could not be used in water less than 
sixty fathoms deep, and here is the real evil, 
where the ultimate destruction of trout lies. 
The writer had occasion to visit our state Capi¬ 
tol last winter when the legislature was in ses¬ 
sion, as a delegate appointed by the fishermen 
of the north shore, with a mission to call on 
the state game and fish commissioner, and to 
urge the passage of a bill beneficial to the in¬ 
dustry as well as to the fishermen. It is but 
fair to state at this time that he was met with 
the utmost cordiality both by the commission¬ 
er and such members of the legislature as he 
had occasion to meet. 
T'he bill was drafted and all such measures 
necessary to conserve fishing embodied there¬ 
in, and to all appearances the much-needed 
regulation was accomplished. Perhaps it should 
be stated at this time that in the original bill 
drafted, ciscoe fishing was prohibited. You may 
well wonder, why should ciscoe fishing be pro¬ 
hibited? It may be argued that it is a market¬ 
able fish of considerable value, and a tasty 
fis'h. All this is true, but out of every one hun¬ 
dred pounds of a catch, fully twenty per cent 
thereof is small trout, most of them weighing 
less than one-half pound each. Now, I ask, 
what in the name of common sense is the use 
of the federal government going to the great 
expense of hatching and planting trout, when 
the same may be caught almost immediately 
after being planted. This may have the appear¬ 
ance of a vicious indictment against our law¬ 
makers, but it is nothing but the plain, unvar¬ 
nished truth, and can be verified by hundreds 
of honest fishermen along the whole shore. 
The writer has been in the habit of fishing 
c’scoes himself, and knows the game from A to 
Z. and like most fishermen having knowledge of 
the destruction this brings to trout, has quit 
fishing ciscoes and shall never attempt it again, 
no matter how much the temptation may be. 
The writer was informed shortly after his 
arrival home from St. Paul last winter, that cer¬ 
tain interests at or about the head of the lakes, 
were making great Vemonstance : against the 
proposed measure. It was argued that if small- 
meshed nets were placed in deep water, say 
not less than sixty fathoms, no trout would be 
caught. The law prohibits marketing of trout 
of less than two pounds weight, but permits the 
killing and destruction of any amount of smaller 
