Dec. i, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
867 
Colorado Trout. 
Intelligent Railroad Cooperation with Fisheries 
Bureau. 
Washington, D. C., Nov. 15 —Editor Forest 
and Stream: Much has been said about irriga¬ 
tion as a menace to trout in the streams of the 
Rocky Mountains and vicinity. It seems that 
there is a bright side to the question. The 
necessity for a continuous water supply during 
the summer months when the streams are low 
and the demands upon them are at the maxi¬ 
mum, has occasioned the building of hundreds 
of reservoirs high up in the mountains, as well 
as the reservoiring of hundreds of natural lakes 
by raising the outlets to impound a greater 
water supply. These waters are almost always 
so located as to form ideal trout preserves, and 
as a result good lake fishing obtains where here¬ 
tofore the fishing did not amount to a great 
deal. 
In the State of Colorado many of these pre¬ 
serves are utilized by the United States Bureau 
of Fisheries and to some extent by the State 
Fish Commission' as a source of supply in ob¬ 
taining spawn of the eastern brook trout, rain¬ 
bow and black-spotted trouts. In this con¬ 
nection it may be noted that more eastern 
brook trout are obtained from the waters of 
Colorado to which this species has been ac¬ 
climatized, than from the waters of any other 
State in the Union. 
The inclosed circular from the Denver, North¬ 
western and Pacific Railway Company is of 
special importance as illustrating the interest 
that railroads are now taking in the preserva¬ 
tion of fish. All of the railroad companies in 
Colorado are very much interested in the work 
of the Bureau of Fisheries, but this is the first 
occasion where I have ever seen a circular 
calling upon the people to co-operate with the 
State Fish and Game .Commission and with the 
United States Bureau of Fisheries in the stock¬ 
ing of streams and in the preservation of fishes. 
State fish commissioners and other officials con¬ 
nected with the preservation of fishes twenty 
years ago will vouch for a radical change of 
sentiment in this regard of a very satisfactory 
nature. J. W. T. 
‘The Denver, Northwestern and Pacific Railway Co. 
Industrial, Land & Mineral Department. 
Denver, Colo., October 12, 1906. 
Dear Sir—The stocking of the streams of 
Middle Park with trout, and the preservation of 
the fish, is a subject of great importance, not 
only to the Denver, Northwestern and Pacific, 
but also to the dwellers in all the territory con¬ 
tiguous to the line. And this applies not only to 
those who own lands'traversed by the rivers 
and their tributaries, but to every one who has 
anything to sell, whether it be meals, farm 
produce or merchandise, for the reason that the 
greater the number of visitors that can be at¬ 
tracted to our beautiful fishing waters, so in 
proportion will all those articles appreciate in 
value, and for this very good reason, I feel 
justified in asking the co-operation of our 
friends with this department, with the State 
Fish and Game Commission and its wardens, 
and with the United States Bureau of Fisheries, 
in the stocking of our streams and the preserva¬ 
tion of the fish. The number of those who are 
sportingly inclined is increasing with the rapid¬ 
ity of most popular fads, and the angler and 
his methods are becoming yearly more artful, 
and this fact, together with the natural enemies 
of the salmonidae family, will render necessary 
all our combined efforts to keep our streams 
from being depleted. Trout will devour their 
own spawn and that of others, and will not 
hesitate to make a hearty meal off their grand¬ 
children and great-grandchildren. The eggs 
are also devoured by the voracious larvae of 
the May fly, the helgramite, and other insects 
which bore their way into the sand, by wild 
and tame ducks, frogs, suckers and by the tramp¬ 
ing of cattle, and the floating down of ties. 
After maturity, the trout’s two-legged enemy 
comes along in the shape of the sportsman, the 
poacher and the game-hog. So you will see 
what a bad time the poor trout has of it after 
all. 
We are planting all the fry the State and 
United States fisheries will give us, but there 
are some 600 miles of fishable waters in Middle 
Park, and 100 men a day through the four fish¬ 
ing months, at 25 fish each, per day, will catch 
300,000 fish, and as from danger of transporta¬ 
tion and other reasons given, not over 50 per 
cent, of the fish planted come to maturity, there 
is still a heavy deficit in the fish supply, and a 
very rapidly increasing demand. The ranch¬ 
men and residents in Middle Park can aid us by 
putting paddle wheels in the intake of the irri¬ 
gation ditches, by keeping a lookout for those 
who take trout under size, over the weight limit 
per day, and by illegal methods, reporting the 
same to the local wardens, by seeing that they 
are not marketed, and by netting the “red 
horse” suckers that lie in big shoals in the deep 
pools in November, after the trout hav.e gone 
down into the deeper waters. 
It is as natural for the wild trout to decrease 
and gradually disappear with the advance of 
settlement and civilization, as the Indian and the 
buffalo, and it will take all our united efforts to 
prevent this. The same argument for protection 
may be used with regard to our furred and 
feathered game. Scenery and mountain air are 
attractive to the tourist and the dwellers in the 
cities, but these can be had anywhere in the 
Rocky Mountains, and soon pall on the visitor, 
but good fishing and shooting never; and the 
places of easy access where these latter may be 
had are fast receding into the inaccessible. 
Therefore, let us foster with every care the only 
one that fortune and the “Moffat Road” have 
placed at our very doors, So I appeal to you 
for your hearty co-operation. 
W. Weston, 
Gen. Agt. I. L. & M. Dept. 
Canadian Fishing. 
Good Sport in the St. Lawrence at Quebec. 
Those Quebecers who are satisfied with bait¬ 
fishing have been able to enjoy it during the 
last month at their own doors. Smelt are so 
abundant at present, and have been for some 
time past, that it is no uncommon thing for 
small boys to take 20 to 30 dozen in the course 
of a single tide, fishing from one of the wharves 
in front of the city. At times these wharves are 
lined by fishermen, literally elbowing each other. 
It is surely no exaggeration to say that the little 
fish must be ascending the river by millions. 
Sometimes a lucky fisherman will lift them out 
of the water four and five at a time, for quite 
a number of hooks are often used. 
Whitefish are also abundant at present in the 
vicinity of the city, and take bait freely, though 
occasionally the fisherman finds he has a pike- 
perch instead of a whitefish. 
The tomcod is not yet very plentiful, but is 
usually quite abundant in the month of Decem¬ 
ber, and Dr. Douglas, of New York, is per¬ 
fectly true to nature in his new history of “New 
France in the New World,” when he indicates 
the supply of these delicate little fish that were 
at the disposal of Jacques Cartier and his crews 
during the first part of the winter which he 
spent in the mouth of the St. Charles River 
here. 
The opening up of newly made roads and 
portages through the woods from the neighbor¬ 
hood of Ste. Anne de Beaupre to Snow Lake 
and Grand Lake Jacques Cartier, makes it much 
more easy to reach these famous fishing waters 
and the hunting offered by the neighboring 
woods than it was when one had to travel by 
way of Stoneham and Tewkesbury and the old 
Lake St. John colonization road, which was the 
route followed some years ago by Mr. John 
Burroughs and party, as described in “The 
Halcyon in Canada.” 
Snow Lake is the headwaters of the Mont¬ 
morency River, and Grand Lake Jacques Car- 
tier feeds the river of the same name. From the 
magnificence, the size and the abundance of the 
fontinalis which inhabit those rivers, wherever 
they are not overfished, it is easy to believe the 
stories of successful fishing told by those who 
have visited the lakes in which they take their 
rise. Almost every year for some seasons past 
a few sportsmen have made the trip to the in¬ 
land waters, and in almost every case they have 
brought back with them brook trout running 
from five to eight pounds apiece. The members 
of one party which ascended to Lake Jacques 
Cartier in the latter part of September appeared 
quite disappointed because their ‘ largest fish 
weighed but six pounds. The members of this 
p&tty are true sportsmen and would not think 
of infringing the rule that permits fly-fishing 
only in the waters of the Laurentides National 
Park, in which the lake is situated, and are con¬ 
sequently under the impression that those who 
brought back so many of the larger fish in other 
seasons may have been less particular in regard 
to lures. There may be something in this con¬ 
tention, though I am rather inclined to the be¬ 
lief that the season was against the highest 
measure of success in fly-fishing last autumn, 
since my own experience in that month was that 
even in some of the best preserved waters in 
the country, the water was so hot and so low 
that the trout could scarcely be prevailed to 
rise to the fly at all, even in the very best of 
the season. In Snow Lake there are enormous 
lake trout as well as fontinalis, and some very 
large ones, exceeding 20 pounds in weight, were 
taken out of it by trolling during the summer 
and fall months. Big game is exceedingly 
plentiful in the country traversed to reach these 
beautiful lakes, and a number of excellent moose 
and caribou heads have been brought out of 
the woods during the last couple of months. 
■ Both the hunting and the fishing in the whole 
of that territory is controlled by the manager 
of the Kent Llouse at Montmorency Falls, who 
has only recently had the roads and portages 
cut out, which furnish the new short cut to the 
interior of the park and the surrounding coun¬ 
try. A caribou head secured by Manager Baker 
on a recent hunting expedition to the Snow 
Lake district had antlers 43 inches in length, and 
with a spread of 35 inches. 
Many other fishermen who took their rifles 
with them into the woods at the opening of 
the hunting season, when starting for the Sep¬ 
tember trout fishing, were lucky enough to get 
shots, at big game. Several bears were shot by 
parties who hunted and fished in the latter part 
of September in the country northwest of Lake 
St. John, and a number of fair moose and cari¬ 
bou heads have been brought here from the 
neighborhood of Lake Edward by visiting 
sportsmen, as well as from the territories of 
the Triton and Tourilli clubs. Among those who 
were successful on the last named territory was 
Mr. McSloy. the president of the club. 
E. T. D. Chambers. 
