Forgotten Treasures #19: THE SPECKLED BROOK TROUT--PART VIII

THE SPECKLED BROOK TROUT

PART VIII: TROUT PROPAGATION.
________________________________________



The artificial propagation of fishes, that is, taking the eggs, impregnating
and hatching them by hand, is reduced practically to an exact science, so
far as the eggs of most food-fishes are concerned; and after that the
rearing of fry to yearlings or older in the hatcheries is chiefly a matter
of cost of food, water supply, and care of the young fish by skilled men.
Most fish, too, of all ages are now transported without loss worth
mentioning, so the work of actual hatching, rearing, transporting, and
planting food-fishes can be planned in advance and carried out as
successfully as the rearing of warm-blooded animals. Beyond the point of
planting strong young fish in wild waters, the work may be a success or
failure, depending upon the conditions existing in the water itself. It may
not be an entire success nor an abject failure, but the fish-breeder cannot
always foresee which it will be with the certainty that he can foretell the
results in his hatchery. Wild waters are always presenting problems to be
worked out, to insure the success of fish propagation in them because the
conditions are not always constant in any particular water, and conditions
change with different waters. In planting fish in a territory so extensive
as is comprised within the boundaries of the State of New York, it is a most
difficult matter to determine in advance what conditions exist in all water
that the State is called upon to stock.



Streams that were once natural trout-streams may have become unfit for
trout, through lack of shade and the drying up of the fountain-head during a
part of the season, caused by lumbering operations. A stream well shaded by
forest growth may provide water of a temperature for trout, and when the axe
has opened the stream to the sun, the temperature of the water may rise to
such a degree that trout cannot live in it. Not one applicant in fifty who
asks for trout-fry gives the temperature of the water to be planted with any
positiveness. A stream that is a roaring torrent in the spring during the
melting of the snows, and is afterward a mere thread of warm water, is not a
proper stream for trout of any kind. As a matter of fact, I have seen a
brook absolutely dry in the month of August that was planted with trout the
preceding May, and probably it was planted in good faith by the person who
applied for and obtained the trout from the State.



The state hatches a greater number of fish each succeeding year, but the
applications for fish more than keep pace with the increase, and the
applications have to be sifted and examined carefully that the best results
may be obtained by the Commission in planting fish only in suitable waters,
judging from the information furnished. If this information is defective or
unreliable or the exact condition existing unknown, the result of
fish-planting may be disappointing.



To show what may be done in the way of stocking a pond intelligently with
trout-fry, Mr. W. C. Witherbee, of Port Henry, obtained 5,000 brook-trout
fry from the State and planted them in a small pond in Essex County. The
pond had once contained trout, but was so thoroughly fished out that no one
thought of fishing it at the time. It contained an abundance of fish-food,
with a fine inlet stream, spring-fed, and an ample supply of water. In
fact, all the conditions were favorable, as the result shows. The fry were
planted and allowed to grow for several years, and the pond was not fished,
for there was no boat on it and it was not generally known that it was
restocked. Mr. and Mrs. Witherbee, concluding that the pond had had time to
recuperate, went there for a day's fishing and caught five trout, the
weights being four and one-half, four, four, four, and three and
three-quarters pounds respectively, or a total for the five trout of twenty
and one-quarter pounds. The pond was, of course, public water, and at once
it was fished without ceasing. One trout of over eleven pounds was taken
from it, taken, too, without regard to the ethics of fair angling; and it is
more than suspected that even a larger trout was taken from the inlet stream
at the spawning season, a trout of thirteen pounds and three ounces. Here
are other conditions to be considered. After a pond is stocked with fish,
and well stocked, water, food, and temperature all being suitable, what
rules can be enforced to insure that the pond will be fished with moderation
in season and not at all out of season? But that is a matter for the
lawmakers, game-protectors, and the consciences of the anglers, rather than
for the fish-breeder; therefore, let us consider a little further the
question of temperature of water suitable for trout. Waters that already
contain trout that do well in them can be planted, as the fact that trout
thrive in them is prima facie evidence that the waters are suitable for the
fish. In extending the range of trout, or in planting streams that have
been fished out, and in which the conditions may have changed, it is safe to
plant in waters that never exceed a summer temperature of 70° F. Rainbow
and brown trout still thrive in waters of higher temperature than are
suitable for brook trout, and brook trout will live in well aerated water
above 70°; at the same time water of 70.5° has killed both brook trout and
brown trout, probably because it lacked vigor, which comes from force and
aeration. Trout grow little, if any, when in water below 40°, and to be at
their best they must have, during a portion of the year, water that ranges
from 62° to 70°, as this temperature hatches the insect life, which
constitutes a large part of the food of trout. While food is all-important,
trout must have room also, in which to grow. It is self-evident that if
trout are planted in numbers to exhaust the food supply, they will not
thrive; but aside from that trout must have space to be at their best, for
it has been demonstrated that a given number of trout in a certain number of
cubic feet of water will do better than the same number of trout in half the
quantity of water, both lots of trout being fed the same amount of food.



How far trout may be acclimated to water of higher temperature than that to
which they are ordinarily accustomed has not yet been fully demonstrated.
In South Africa the brown trout has been hatched in water as high as 79°,
and in this country the rainbow have been found to thrive in swift,
well-aerated streams that reach 85° F. The experiments of Dr. Davy
("Physiological Researches") to determine the temperature fatal to trout are
of interest, and aside from the question of temperature, as they show how
trout try to escape when the water becomes too warm. He placed a common
European trout (fario), or brown trout of this State, of about a quarter
pound weight, into a good volume of water at 62°, which was pretty rapidly
raised to 75° by additions of warm water, when it became very active and
tried to leap out. In an hour the water was increased to 80°, and after a
few minutes more to 85°, when it became convulsed, and, although transferred
to cool water, died. When the water had sunk to 70° a smaller trout and a
minnow were put in, and although the next morning the temperature had sunk
to 67°, the trout was dead, but the minnow had not suffered. A par of the
salmon, about four inches long, was similarly treated, the water in half an
hour being raised from 60° to 70°, and now it tried to escape. The water
was raised to 80° and it became torpid and convulsed; at 84° it seemed to
have died. A char of about the same size had the water gradually raised to
80°, when it appears to have succumbed. The trout tried to escape by
leaping out of the water, while the char kept to the bottom with its head
downward, as if seeking for a cooler locality.



The common brook trout of this country (fontinalis) is a char, and
undoubtedly acts as did the European char in the experiment, by seeking
cooler water downward in a pond when the surface water becomes warm, and
searching out spring-holes in streams, so they may be left to their own
devices to find the coldest water provided in any stream or pond in which
they are planted; but unless the stream or pond contains the cool water for
them to find-i.e., below 70°, and 65° would be better-it is useless to
attempt to propagate brook trout in it. There are other conditions which
operate against the maintenance of trout in a stream. The fish must have
gravel in which to make their spawning-beds. Even with gravel but a small
percentage of eggs deposited naturally are hatched, but if deposited in the
soft bottom they may be lost entirely. During the past season I examined a
trout-pond at the request of a committee of gentlemen who had stocked it,
and found there was very little gravel where springs boil from the bottom,
and trout had been in the habit of spawning, and that little had been
covered by vegetable growth. I suggested that spawning-beds be provided by
hauling gravel on the ice in winter, spreading it over the places where the
springs came from the bottom, and when the ice melted the gravel would
settle evenly over the vegetable growth and provide the only thing which
appeared to be needed to make the pond suitable for the propagation of
trout, for the water was pure and cool, and there was an abundance of
fish-food. Streams that are subject to sudden and severe freshets may have
not only the spawning-beds ripped up and destroyed, but the food of the fish
may be washed out of the stream and will need to be replaced artificially.



Suckers are very destructive of trout-spawn, but after an examination of
several small Adirondack lakes, that are natural trout-waters, but from
which the trout have become practically exterminated, I am of the opinion
that bullheads are to be charged with the destruction, more than any other
one thing, men always excepted. Bullheads have not, perhaps, the general
reputation for destroying trout-spawn that the sucker enjoys; nevertheless,
they are one of the most destructive agents to be found in the water where
trout exist.


In the lakes referred to I found that the bullheads fairly swarmed, to the
exclusion of all other fish, except a few big trout. They had not only
destroyed the trout-spawn, but had destroyed all the food of the trout, and
were themselves dwarfed and starved until they were unfit for food. In
other waters the bullheads would have sought for food, and fishing would
have kept them down, but men, as a rule, do not go into the Adirondack
Wilderness to catch bullheads, and consequently all the fishing had been for
trout, and the bullheads had multiplied unmolested until they monopolized
the water to the exclusion of everything else. In one little lake the
bullheads were like a solid carpet of fish suspended in the water under the
boat, and with a piece of meat tied to a string about 2,000 were caught in a
few hours, as many as seven being lifted into the boat at one time. They
were from three to four inches long, and the largest taken was five and
one-half inches long, too small to pay for dressing, even had they been fat,
which they were not.



On the spawning-beds of lake trout in New Hampshire, bullheads were found so
gorged with trout-spawn that they were lying helpless on their sides, and
one of the Commissioners who witnessed the sight told me that he was firmly
of the opinion that the gorging would have proved fatal to some of the
bullheads if the hatchery men had not anticipated the result.



In waters that do not contain brook trout the bullhead is a most desirable
food-fish, and it grows to good size and is always in demand. The waters of
the State furnish about 200,000 pounds of bullheads annually, so far as
returns have been obtained, more than of any other fish except the shad.



The bullhead is a prolific fish and broods its young, and in trout-waters
where it is not sought as food it has only to breed and multiply, barring
such casualties as all fish are subject to in a state of nature.



In trout-waters such as I have mentioned, where bullheads have driven the
trout to the wall, if fishermen would devote a little time to catching
bullheads there would be fewer to devour the spawn of trout and consume
their food. There is another remedy for this condition of things, but it is
one that can be applied only by the Fisheries, Game, and Forest Commission
or its agents.



Every little while it is discovered by someone that trout contain ova in the
summer, and there is a demand that the closed season be shortened. The last
complaint of this sort that I have noticed was printed in a paper in the
northern part of the State. The writer of the complaint found ripe eggs in
some trout he caught in August, and he desired that the law should close the
fishing on and after August 1st. This gentleman simply made the mistake
that others have made, for the eggs were not ripe. If he had examined trout
in June or before, he would have found spawn in the females, but it would
have been undeveloped ova, the same as he found in August, except that the
latter was further advanced. In this State brook trout spawn in October,
with some variation, depending upon the water, for the colder the water the
earlier they will spawn.



At the Adirondack hatching-station of this Commission, in Franklin County,
they begin to spawn about October 1st; at the Caledonia station, in
Livingston County, they begin to spawn about October 15th, and eggs are
taken as Late as April 19th; at Cold Harbor station, on Long Island, they
begin to spawn the last of October, but the height of the season is from
November 10th to 30th, although a few fish come on in December and as late
as January.



In running streams the temperature of the water would follow closely the
temperature of the air, and the spawning would be early if the season were
cold, except in streams that were largely spring-fed, in which case the
temperature of the water would not fall so rapidly and the spawning would be
prolonged.



Trout spawn when they are "yearlings," but a yearling is more than twelve
months old. All brook-trout eggs are hatched in the spring, and the period
of incubation varies with the temperature of the water. The eggs taken the
first of October in Northern New York may be 150 days hatching, while the
eggs taken on Long Island the last of November will be only about sixty days
in hatching. Say that trout are hatched on Long island in March, during the
following summer they will be fry, and in the fall they will be fingerlings,
seven or eight months old. The next season they will be yearlings, and as
they spawn in the fall of the second season, they will actually be twenty
months old at spawning time, although from custom they are called yearling.
Consequently, a yearling brook trout at spawning time is from eighteen to
twenty months of age, dating from the time it left the egg. A yearling
trout may yield from fifty to 250 eggs, the eggs being one-sixth of an inch
in diameter, quite different from the mustard-seed eggs which the fisherman
found in the fish he caught during the summer months of the open season. A
trout but four inches long has been known to yield forty ripe eggs. Many
yearling trout in wild waters are not six inches long, and where the
six-inch trout law is observed numbers of trout will spawn before then can
be legally killed. If there were no six-inch trout law, it would be
possible to kill the trout before they spawned once, and the stock would
have to depend almost entirely upon artificial propagation, with but slight
aid from natural processes. A "yearling" trout in one of the State
rearing-ponds is quite a different fish from a wild trout of the same age,
for the State rears yearlings (seventeen months from the egg) that are ten
and one-half inches long. Two-year-old trout may yield as many as 500 eggs,
and older fish as many as 1,500.



To maintain fair fishing, even in a trout-stream, such work as the State may
be able to do in the way of planting the water should be supplemented by all
the fish that may come from natural reproduction, and the trout should have
every possible opportunity to spawn unmolested.

END PART VIII

"Wolfgang" wrote in message
...
THE SPECKLED BROOK TROUT

PART VIII: TROUT PROPAGATION.

p.s. It might interest some readers to know that the author of this piece,
A. Nelson Cheney, is an ancestor of a currently well known American public
figure with whom I suspect the majority of us (or at least the wiser) would
be delighted to fish......if the alternative were bird hunting.

Wolfgang
or, so says the little woman, anyway.

Wolfgang wrote:


or, so says the little woman, anyway.



uh...does she know you writ that bit? i expect you'd be spending
unexpected time with cullen if she did.

jeff (who just made the mistake of telling rachel how pretty she looked
while she was attempting to explain something serious about the mormon
orthodoxy... jeez, talk about a feminine maelstrom...wimmen.)

"Wolfgang" sed:

"Wolfgang" wrote in message

THE SPECKLED BROOK TROUT

PART VIII: TROUT PROPAGATION.

p.s. It might interest some readers to know that the author of this
piece, A. Nelson Cheney, is an ancestor of a currently well known
American public figure with whom I suspect the majority of us (or at
least the wiser) would be delighted to fish......if the alternative
were bird hunting.

Hmmmm ... I wonder if the family retains the copyrights.

--
BG

Wolfgang wrote:
"Wolfgang" wrote in message
...

THE SPECKLED BROOK TROUT

PART VIII: TROUT PROPAGATION.


p.s. It might interest some readers to know that the author of this piece,
A. Nelson Cheney, is an ancestor of a currently well known American public
figure with whom I suspect the majority of us (or at least the wiser) would
be delighted to fish......if the alternative were bird hunting.

A. Nelson is almost as boring and tedious as his illustrious descendant
is evil. I wouldn't fish with either of them, and if the alternative
were bird hunting I'd load buckshot in a 12 gauge and wear Kevlar and
head gear.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

"jeff" wrote in message
...
Wolfgang wrote:


or, so says the little woman, anyway.

uh...does she know you writ that bit? i expect you'd be spending
unexpected time with cullen if she did.

Becky never reads this stuff unless I point something out to her.......well,
we hope not, anyway. However, given that it IS possible, I SHOULD have been
very clear about who I was referring to as "TLW":

http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/20030618.html

Note the response to the question from Christian in San Jose.

jeff (who just made the mistake of telling rachel how pretty she looked
while she was attempting to explain something serious about the mormon
orthodoxy... jeez, talk about a feminine maelstrom...wimmen.)

Check; never tell a woman that she is pretty in the midst of a serious
discussion about Mormon orthodoxy. Good to have this one pointed
out......some of these rules aren't exactly intuitive.

As it turns out, Cullen and I have spent the last two days together and will
be enjoying each other's company again today. I am being punished for Becky
having a Strep infection last week. When she was finished with it, she gave
it to me. It has lodged in the right side of my mandible. Vicodin is
grossly overrated.

Wolfgang

"BGhouse" wrote in message
...

Hmmmm ... I wonder if the family retains the copyrights.

The U.S. copyright on this book has lapsed. It is in the public domain.

This is generally true of works published before 1923.....last I heard. For
anything newer than that, the **** can get very complicated.

Wikipedia has a good introduction to copyright law, including a cogent
summary of the lively controversy surrounding ever increasing duration:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright

For those willing to go to the effort of wading through it, the U.S.
Copyright Office has a lot more detail:

http://www.copyright.gov/

Wolfgang

On May 2, 11:48 am, "Wolfgang" wrote:
"BGhouse" wrote in message

...

Hmmmm ... I wonder if the family retains the copyrights.

The U.S. copyright on this book has lapsed. It is in the public domain.

This is generally true of works published before 1923.....last I heard. For
anything newer than that, the **** can get very complicated.

Wikipedia has a good introduction to copyright law, including a cogent
summary of the lively controversy surrounding ever increasing duration:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright

For those willing to go to the effort of wading through it, the U.S.
Copyright Office has a lot more detail:

http://www.copyright.gov/

In addition, the clever folks at the Stanford University Library have
put together a very useful tool for determining if certain books have
had their copyright renewed:

http://collections.stanford.edu/copyrightrenewals/

While the book in question is not covered by this database, it is the
type of question that the compilers are concerned with- have the
original copyright holder's heirs renewed the copyright on a work? It
helps figure out the complicated stuff for the 1923-1963 period.

Wm

wrote in message
oups.com...
On May 2, 11:48 am, "Wolfgang" wrote:
"BGhouse" wrote in message

...

Hmmmm ... I wonder if the family retains the copyrights.

The U.S. copyright on this book has lapsed. It is in the public domain.

This is generally true of works published before 1923.....last I heard.
For
anything newer than that, the **** can get very complicated.

Wikipedia has a good introduction to copyright law, including a cogent
summary of the lively controversy surrounding ever increasing duration:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright

For those willing to go to the effort of wading through it, the U.S.
Copyright Office has a lot more detail:

http://www.copyright.gov/

In addition, the clever folks at the Stanford University Library have
put together a very useful tool for determining if certain books have
had their copyright renewed:

http://collections.stanford.edu/copyrightrenewals/

While the book in question is not covered by this database, it is the
type of question that the compilers are concerned with- have the
original copyright holder's heirs renewed the copyright on a work? It
helps figure out the complicated stuff for the 1923-1963 period.

Cool. Thanks for that, Bill.

While I have your attention, did you get my e-mail concerning part VI?

Wolfgang

Wolfgang wrote:


http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/20030618.html

Note the response to the question from Christian in San Jose.


uh...have you been convicted of some serious wrongdoing? only some
perverse suspended sentence would have sent you to that website! g


As it turns out, Cullen and I have spent the last two days together and will
be enjoying each other's company again today. I am being punished for Becky
having a Strep infection last week. When she was finished with it, she gave
it to me. It has lodged in the right side of my mandible. Vicodin is
grossly overrated.


hmmm...perhaps becky did read your post after all...you have checked the
prescription carefully, haven't you?

jeff