Feb. 24, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
235 
Cutthroat Trout of Lake Chelan. Young Salmon caught in Puget Sound and sold in the 
Dolly ^’arden or Crook Trout. market as Salmon Trout. 
pear dark also. If caught on the riffles where 
the sunlight shows strong, the -fish will appear 
bright and silvery; in fact, the environments and 
the different seasons of the year make a great 
deal of difference in the appearance of the steel- 
head trout. 
The amount of natural food in the different 
waters makes a difference in the appearance of 
these fish. In streams where food is plentiful 
these fish grow very fast and become large, and 
if food is not plentiful, they become stunted and 
remain small. 
The sea run of this species will frequently 
come into a stream when the silverside and dog 
salmon are spawning, and feed on the spawn of 
these fish. They will then leave this stream and 
later return and spawn in the same stream. This 
fact is demonstrated every fall in Muck Creek, 
a tributary of the Nisqually River. 
The cutthroat trout is also found in salt water 
and in the fresh water streams of this State. 
The sea run always follows a run of sa'mon 
into the fresh water streams and feed on the 
spawn of the salmon, and like the steelhead 
these trout also landlock and remain in the 
fresh water streams where they breed, and their 
Crosses between Landlocked Steelhead and Lake Chelan 
Cutthroat Trout. 
young remain and are also classed as salmon 
trout. If caught in the mountain streams they 
are called mountain trout, and if caught in 
brooks are called brook trout. 
The cutthroat mark, which consists of a red 
dash directly under the gills, does not make its 
appearance until some time after the sea run 
fish have been in fresh water, but in the trout 
that do not go to salt water, the red dash makes 
its appearance almost as soon as the yolk sack 
is absorbed and the young trout begin to take 
food. As the sea run species of the cutthroat 
makes their appearance in the streams at the 
same time as the yearling steelhead, and the cut¬ 
throat mark has not yet made its appearance, 
both species are often classed as the salmon trout. 
In reality, there is no such fish as the salmon 
trout. 
this State has installed a sub-station on Dumph- 
key’s Lake to be worked in conjunction with the 
Lake Chelan Hatchery next spring, and there is 
not the slightest doubt that many streams in the 
State will be stocked with the best and gamiest 
trout in the world. This experiment has demon¬ 
strated that the steelhead and cutthroat can be 
crossed and produce a splendid trout. I am 
satisfied beyond any doubt that these hybrids 
Young chinook and silverside salmon caught 
in the waters of Puget Sound are sold on the 
market as salmon trout, but these fish are strict¬ 
ly salmon, and it has been only about eight years 
since these young salmon have been sold on the 
market in any quantity. 
The fact that cutthroat trout caught in the 
same streams at the same time of the year 
varied a great deal in appearance, led me to 
make some experiments in breeding. I had al¬ 
ready inbred the steelhead for seven years and 
convinced myself and other fish culturists that 
the rainbow trout was a descendant of the steel¬ 
head. On the 3 d of July, 1904 , I shipped a con¬ 
signment of steelhead eggs to the Lake Chelan 
trout hatchery. These eggs were hatched at the 
trout hatchery and kept until ready to plant. 
Mr. Cool, who had a homestead on the shores 
of Dumphkey’s Lake, was given a^ supply of 
these young steelhead trout to plant in the lake. 
The lake is situated high up in the mountains 
and about one and one-half miles from Lake 
Chelan. At this time the lake contained no trout 
of any kind. The young steelheads were placed 
in milk cans and transported by a lake steamer 
to a point near Dumphkey’s Lake. The fish did 
remarkably well, and four, taken twenty-two 
months later, averaged over two pounds in 
weight. The steelhead trout spawn at two years 
of age. 
Two years later some cutthroat were secured 
from Lake Chelan and Railroad Creek and trans¬ 
ported in cans lashed on pack horses to Dumph¬ 
key’s Lake. Last August I was at the lake and 
found that the cutthroat and steelhead had cross¬ 
bred and the result was a splendid trout. Al¬ 
though the cutthroat is the smaller fish, all of 
the hybrids showed the cutthroat mark under 
the gills. I secured quite a number; in fact, 
twenty-five specimens of these hybrids, and I 
never saw a more beautiful or more gamy fish. 
The flesh of the steelhead is a bright red, as 
is that of the Lake Chelan cutthroat, but the meat 
of the hybrid is of a delicate pink and the flesh 
is delicious. I caught several of these hybrids 
both male and female that had spawned, and I 
also found many females full of spawn and 
many males with large milt. The result of this 
experiment is, that the Fisheries Department of 
will reproduce. 
During the month of February, I909' this ex¬ 
periment was carried on at the Nisqually salmon 
hatchery in this State, and the result was a 
strong, healthy trout that thrived as well as any 
other fish in the hatchery, and they practically 
all showed the cutthroat mark before they were 
planted. As we had no pond where we could 
conduct a perfect control experiment with these 
hybrids, we turned them out into Muck Creek. 
landlocked Ste'elhead and Cutthroat Trout 
brooks and mountain streams and often classed 
In the spring of 1910 we again made some ex¬ 
periments along the same line, and the young 
hybrids did as well as the year previous, and 
all showed the red dash under the gills at an 
early age. These trout were kept in the troughs 
of the hatchery until about the first of June when 
a consignment was planted in a pond in Kitsap 
county, owned by Senator Josiah Collins, of 
Seattle. 
