Sept. 16, 1911] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
451 
The Golden Trout or Sunapee Saibling 
By W. M. KEIL 
I T is surprising how few enthusiastic trout 
anglers in this country know anything at all 
about one of our most beautiful and, with¬ 
out question, hardest fighting fish—the aureolus 
or Sunapee trout. Of course its restricted habi¬ 
tat is mostly to blame for its few acquaintances, 
but again the fact that so little has ever been 
written concerning this splendid charr, especially 
in sporting papers or magazines, that very few 
of even the most traveled anglers, unless they 
have actually fished waters inhabited by this 
fish, know little or nothing as to its classifica¬ 
tion, appearances, fighting qualities or methods 
of capture. 
There can be no doubt but that this fish is 
indigenous to at least four New England lakes 
—Sunapee and Dan Hole Pond in New Hamp¬ 
shire; Little Averill Lake, in Vermont, and 
Floods Pond, in Maine—and while several au¬ 
thorities have claimed that it is identical with 
the European saibling and must have been in¬ 
troduced from there, no one who has talked 
with the old settlers of the Sunapee region can 
dispute the fact that the “white trout,” as it is 
locally called, inhabited Lake Sunapee long be¬ 
fore the transportation of eyed ova to and from 
foreign countries was thought possible. 
As to its being identical with the European 
form, I cannot say, never having had the oppor¬ 
tunity to compare the two fish from living speci¬ 
mens, nor would I dare contradict the statements 
of men skilled in ichthyological anatomy as to 
their structural similarity, but from my own per¬ 
sonal knowledge of the Sunapee fish, from what 
I have been able to gather from written descrip¬ 
tions, and from conversations with persons who 
have lived the greater part of their lives near 
waters containing the European form, it won d 
seem that the external appearances at least are 
very much different. 
There is only one lake in the United States 
in which the European saibling were introduced 
from which a specimen could be obtained for 
preservation in the National Museum. This is 
Sterling Lake, New York, situated about three 
miles north of the Jersey line in the Ramapo 
Hills, and which was probably the most ideal 
lake for the introduction of this species in this 
country, the water being wonderfully clear and 
over a hundred feet in depth, the bottom in 
places full of immense boulders, and in others 
of pure white sand. 
From this one planting of a few fingerling fish 
back in the 8o's an occasional specimen is still 
taken, but it is only after they have been eaten 
and a'most forgotten that mention is made of 
having taken a peculiar looking trout, not hav¬ 
ing the large pale spots of the lake trout, but 
with a few small red ones scattered over the 
sides. I have fished this lake myself several 
times by deep trolling, getting plenty of ordinary 
“lakers,” but with no results so far as the saib¬ 
ling were concerned. 
As to the appearances of the Sunapee fish, the 
almost indescribable beauty of its orange and 
Vermillion coloration during its short reproduc¬ 
tive period, when it flashes forth with all the 
brilliancy of a fire opal, can only be enjoyed 
by the few men whose duty it is to obtain their 
spawn, and to these men alone is the name 
“golden trout” significant or appropriate, for at 
all other seasons of the year its wedding finery 
is laid aside and a resumption of its every day 
garments adopted. In the mature fish the back 
is of a solid sea green with no black spots or 
mottlings; the sides a bright silver blending into 
a cream-colored belly; pectoral fins orange, while 
the ventral, anal and the lower part of caudal or 
tail are lemon yellow, the outer edge of which 
is margined with pure white. Scattered over the 
sides are round, pale, whitish spots. In the 
younger examples from six up to twelve or 
fourteen inches the back is more of a bronze 
with vermiculations similar to the brook trout. 
The sides have the ten parr markings on a back¬ 
ground of yellow, which color usually extends 
though in some of the smaller specimens this 
is of a decided pinkish cast. The delicate, shape¬ 
ly form of this fish, together with the small head 
and mouth and symmetrical fins, class it at once 
as an aristocrat of the trout family, and place 
it in beauty of lines and coloring far ahead of 
its first cousin, the brook trout. 
It was first collected and described by Colonel 
Hodge and Dr. Quackenbos in 1885 or 1886, and 
was shortly after made the subject of a special 
investigation by Dr. Bean, who pronounced it a 
distinct American variety, giving it the scientific 
name of Salvelinus aureolus and thereby calling 
down on his head the professional wrath of 
several other ichthyologists who insisted that the 
middle name of alpinus be added. In my esti¬ 
mation the only reasonable explanation of its 
presence in these few New England lakes is that 
some time during the g'acial period numbers of 
these charrs were carried down from the far 
north and deposited in many of the lakes, but 
have only lived and multiplied in those waters 
whose conditions have been favorable. It is a 
fish actually requiring deep and extremely cold 
water, and lives almost entirely in the depths, 
its only natural movement into the shallow 
waters being at the time of its brief spawning 
season, the last of October or the first of No¬ 
vember, when the bottom and surface waters are 
of an even temperature. Of course, since the 
introduction of smelt into these lakes, their 
habits have changed somewhat, for they follow 
the breeding smelt into the shallows along the 
shore during the early spring, and some seasons 
are to be taken in considerable numbers by troll¬ 
ing, but at the first indication of warmth of the 
surface water they immediately drop back into 
the deeper portions of the lake. 
Although Lake Sunapee contains, or is said to 
contain, six varieties of trout and two of salmon, 
the white trout is the most plentiful of any of 
the Salmonidce found in these waters, and as 
long as the native and summer residents con¬ 
tinue their present policy of keeping the water 
pure and free from contaminating drains, and 
from allowing any deleterious substances thrown 
in to destroy the natural balance, I think there 
will always be a plentiful supply of these fish 
for many generations of coming anglers. 
I have. never heard of any examples being 
taken by what is known as fly-fishing, but occas¬ 
ionally they are taken with a fly spoon trolled 
near the shore when they are still in the shal¬ 
lows in the spring. But it is by deep still-fishing 
that the best results are obtained. This fishing 
usually begins about the first of June and is 
practiced as follows: A permanent buoy is an¬ 
chored in a locality that has been found by ex¬ 
perience to be good grounds, and quantities of 
cracked corn, egg shells, oatmeal, etc., thrown 
out to attract the smelt. This “bailing your 
buoy” is continued at intervals throughout the 
entire fishing season, and the majority of the 
local anglers tie up to one spot all summer, al¬ 
though many of them have buoys in other parts 
of the lake. Permission is almost always cour¬ 
teously extended to visiting anglers to use these 
buoys at any time except when the owners are 
anchored there themselves; and having obtained 
this permission or put out one of your own, your 
next step of importance is to be sure you have 
proper tackle and bait. As most of the land¬ 
locked and Pacific chinook salmon are taken by 
this method of angling, it behooves one to have 
tackle dependable enough to at least make some 
showing against one of these lusty warriors 
weighing possibly twenty pounds. The style and 
length of the rod may be varied to suit the in¬ 
dividual preference, but you need a good multi¬ 
plying reel carrying at least 100 yards of No. 4 
or F braided waterproof line, three-foot leader 
of single gut in extra heavy bass or salmon 
weight. The snelled hook should be on double 
gut and of a size to correspond to a No. 1 sproat. 
The hook most used by local fishermen is the 
Aberdeen, but I do not like the shape of this 
hook and have always used either the sproat or 
the New York trout. A No. 6 Rangeley sinker 
is about the proper weight, and should be placed 
