OUR HERITAGE OF THE FRESH WATERS 
99 
The Brook Trout persists in small coastal streams 
where the conditions favorable to it have not been 
disturbed, and it often descends to brackish water. 
It will live in streams having a summer temperature 
as high as 70 degrees, provided they have swift 
currents. 
The Brook Trout cannot live through the sum¬ 
mer in the New York Aquarium without the aid 
of refrigerated water, although the city supply is 
derived in part from the Catskill Mountains and 
flows 100 miles underground. The Brook Trout 
will live in cool lakes and ponds, but cannot re¬ 
produce in such situations without access to the 
gravelly beds of running brooks at spawning time. 
Trout culture in America dates back to the 
early fifties. Fish-culturists raise great numbers 
of Brook Trout, both for market and for distribu¬ 
tion in small artificial ponds, by feeding the fishes 
and caring for the eggs in hatchery troughs provided 
with flowing spring water. 
The instinct to move upstream is very strong in 
young Trout; when a miniature “fishway” with its 
stairs of tiny box pools is connected with a hatching 
trough, they will promptly begin to ascend and 
cannot, in fact, be kept down while water is allowed 
to flow through it. 
The Brook Trout spawns in the fall, when streams 
begin to cool, but the eggs do not hatch out until 
springtime brings higher temperature. The hatch¬ 
ing period lasts from three to six months, according 
to latitude and altitude. The Brook Trout spawns 
when two years old. Larger and older fishes deposit 
from 500 to 2,000 eggs. 
In lakes w’here there is an abundant food supply, 
the Brook Trout has in the past been known to 
reach the rare weight of 10 pounds; but to-day, 
when thousands of anglers are whipping the Trout 
streams, a one-pound Trout is a large one. Many 
good Trout waters have been ruined by the ill- 
advised introduction of predatory fishes. 
The coloration of the Brook Trout is extremely 
variable. In some waters the fish may exhibit ad 
the brilliancy of which it is capable, while in another 
watershed not far away it is so dark that but little 
color is discernible. 
A notable illustration of this is found on Long 
Island, the Trout on the south side of the island 
being among the showiest of the species, while 
those of the north side are as dark as the Brook 
Trout ever becomes, although the supply on both 
sides is maintained by hatchery-raised fishes. After 
a few months in captivity, the bright colors of the 
former tend to disappear, while the latter become 
somewhat paler. This may be due largely to a 
change in diet and the exclusion of direct sunlight 
from the tanks. 
In the Trout, as in many other fishes, the colors 
vary with age. 
In streams the Brook Trout is largely a- feeder 
on aquatic insects, while in lakes and ponds it 
feeds much on small fishes. In the Aquarium it 
subsists cheerfully on chopped fish, like the other 
captives of the tank, and in the average hatchery 
pond becomes a fat liver-fed gourmand. 
The Brook Trout is not a leaping fish, like the 
Bass, when hooked, although it may rise clear of 
the surface in striking the fly. 
We need not describe methods of capturing the 
Trout; anglers have been writing of this in great 
detail since the days of the Father of Anglers. No 
native game fish is more worthy of protection in 
the waters still suited to it than the Brook Trout. 
LAKE TROUT (Cristivomer namaycush) 
{For illustration see Color Plate^ page iiy) 
The Lake Trout of the Great Lakes belongs 
chiefly to the fish trade. In these inland seas the 
angler’s share is small in comparison. It is the 
largest of all Trouts and is known to have reached 
a weight of 100 pounds. The average of those 
taken in the gill nets used at the present time 
weighs less than 10 pounds, while those caught by 
anglers along shore average but half that weight. 
The writer once accompanied a northern Alaska 
expedition, a member of which brought into camp 
specimens of this Trout exceeding three and a 
half feet in length. They were taken in a large 
lake at the headwaters of the Kowak River, above 
the Arctic Circle, where they were very abundant. 
Among our fresh-water fishes the Lake Trout 
ranks next to the Whitefish in commercial im¬ 
portance. It is found throughout the Great Lakes 
and from there northward, in all the large lakes of 
British America and Alaska. 
A deep-water form of this Trout, called Siscowet, 
is taken in great numbers in Lake Superior, the 
gill nets being set at times in depths exceeding ^00 
feet and lifted by steam power. The writer once 
made a cruise north of the Apostle Islands on a 
steam fishing boat operating 40 nets, each 600 feet 
long. These were set in one “gang,” constituting 
a single net more than four miles in length. 
Each deep-water fishing boat attends to four or 
five of these great nets. As the net is lifted by the 
windlass forward, it is carried aft in sections, put 
together again, and paid out over the stern. The 
nets were about eight feet wide, with four and a 
half inch mesh. 
The largest of the deep-water Lake Trout taken 
by our vessel was two feet ten inches long and 
weighed 21 pounds. 
It would be interesting to know the greatest 
depth at which Lake Trout have been taken, as 
Lake Superior, one of the deepest lakes in the 
world, has depths exceeding 1,000 feet and its 
bottom is far below sea-level. 
Some time later a day was spent on a steam 
fishing boat in the Georgian Bay near its connec¬ 
tion with Lake Huron, and the lifting of a gill net 
six miles in length was observed. It was set at a 
depth of 100 feet and the work of lifting and reset¬ 
ting occupied five hours. The catch was nearly 
1,000 pounds of Lake Trout, the largest of which 
was three feet long and weighed 15 pounds. 
There are many steam vessels in the Great 
Lakes engaged in such wholesale fishing, as long 
as the Lakes are free from ice. The annual net 
catch of Lake Trout in the Great Lakes in 1917 
exceeded 13,000,000 pounds. 
The writer has taken Lake Trout in the Georgian 
Bay at depths of about 50 feet with hand line and 
trolling spoon, but the sport would have been 
better had rod and reel been used. Anglers who 
have used the rod with 300 feet of line and Minnow 
bait find that the fish can be played in a satisfactory 
manner. 
Surface trolling, when the Trout are found in 
shallower waters, affords better sport. In smaller 
and shallower lakes, like those of Maine, where 
summer water temperatures are higher than in the 
Great Lakes, the Lake Trout is often taken with 
the fly. In Seneca Lake, in New York State, it 
is taken with a special trolling rig, designed to 
play the spoon 10 or 20 feet under the surface. 
