Brook trout

“ Poor people cannot get a smell of whitefish. The same may be said of brook trout. While they will bite a hook, it requires more machinery to catch them than ordinary people can possess without mortgaging a house. A man has got to have a morocco book of expensive flies, a fifteen dollar bamboo jointed rod, a three dollar trout basket with a hole mortised in the top, a corduroy suit made in the latest style, top boots of the Wellington pattern, with red tassels in the straps, and a flask of Otard brandy in a side pocket. ”

“ Real distinctions are those permanent ones that no change of food and water can affect, nor the chance influence of a few shell-fish or a muddy bottom. There are distinctions between these trout and brook trout, of color, comparative size of different parts of the body, formation of the head and fins; but not more so than one often meets with in fishing any of the streams of Long Island that communicate with the sea, or even in the different streams of the wild woods. ”

“ On a bright, cheery September morning, Private Westbrook, of the Third Infantry, and myself left [263] camp as soon as the sun had expelled the frost from the vegetation. On the way down we caught a number of grasshoppers—the orthodox bait in this region—to fall back on in case of necessity; for there are days when the mountain trout, as well as his cousin, the brook trout of the East, declines the most seductive fly on the bill of fare, and will have nothing but his favorite every-day diet. ”

“ If he does not fill his basket in a little while, he may set it down to the score of bad luck, or some lack of skill on his part in taking them, for the brook trout are there in abundance. Across the lake from Long Island, to the right as you go up the lake, is a bay that goes away in around a woody point. At the head of this bay, "Grindstone Brook" enters. It is a smallish stream, and comes dashing down over shelving rocks some thirty feet, and shoots out into the bay among broken rocks, and loose boulders. The waters of this stream are much colder than those of the lake. ”

“ Lower fins red, with first ray white. The color of the brook trout varies considerably according to locality.
The Brook Trout is found in almost all cool and rapid-flowing spring brooks, from the highest mountain to the low shore, where it enters the sea. The sea-going trout is silvery gray in color.
The Trout is the choicest of foodfishes, and trout fishing is considered the finest sport.
The Trout is caught with worms, grasshoppers, live bait, and artificial flies. ”

“ The brook trout are the fish which mostly inhabit them, and, a singular fact, in many of these streams this kind of fish treat the presence of a man with perfect indifference, which has led me to believe, that in their primitive state, the "shy trout" fear neither man nor beast. The Indians catch them, and it may be that this fish is first frightened by them. In the Rocky Mountains, south of the head waters of the Arkansas, comparatively speaking, there are but few small birds and squirrels. The raven, the crow, the hawk, the owl, and occasionally the eagle, are seen. ”

“ The sweetest fish that swims is the brook trout, weighing from a quarter of a pound down. Rolled in flour, or meal, and fried brown, they have no equal. The lake and river trout, weighing from two to ten pounds, beautiful as they are, have not that delicacy of flavor which belongs to the genuine brook trout. ”

“ The female brook trout only live to be five or six years old, such necessarily rough handling naturally shortening their lives, and the males are turned loose down the stream after about the same age, but the salmon trout attain the age of fifteen or eighteen years. To put an edge to the enjoyment of this visit, that was intense to one interested in all out-of-door sports, Jim took a pan of chopped liver and the instant the meat struck the water in one of the ponds, three thousand yellow bellies made the water foam and boil with their lightning-like flashes. ”

“ The brook trout is even more aristocratic than the whitefish, and should not be propagated at public expense.
But there are fish that should be propagated in the interest of the people. There is a species of fish that never looks at the clothes of the man who throws in the bait, a fish that takes whatever is thrown to it, and when once hold of the hook never tries to shake a friend, but submits to the inevitable, crosses its legs and says “Now I lay me,” and comes out on the bank and seems to enjoy being taken. ”

“ The first trout he ever catches in this brook seems a monster and never afterward does one pull quite so hard. Isolated as he is, and having none but his elders for company, he talks to the creatures of the field and forest as if they could understand him, and he watches their ways and habits and tries to make them his friends. He is a lonely boy, and seldom sees others of his age, so that perhaps when he does they make a more distinct impression on his mind. ”

“ They are quite as gamy, as vicious in their fighting, and as destructive to fine tackle as the brook trout, the only perceptible difference being that they do not fight so long. They yield, however, only after a stubborn resistance, sufficiently prolonged to challenge the admiration of any angler. ”

“ The change in color, which begins with the trout’s advent to fresh water, is progressive, and ceases only when the object of its mission, the deposit and impregnation of the spawn, is accomplished. In proof of this I will state that during the last days of our stay on the stream, and notably in fish taken fifteen or twenty miles from tide water, it was not infrequent that we caught trout as gorgeous and brilliant in color as the male brook trout at the spawning season. ”

“ After leaving the springs the water, in summer, is continually approaching the temperature of the air; and when it gets to 70° the danger line is reached. In swift water our brook trout have lived at five degrees above that point, but they suffered, and some have died, while others lived until the declining sun permitted the water to cool a trifle. This is a point that should be in mind when planning ponds, for it is of the greatest importance. A spring brook that will sustain many trout in a pond of half an acre might fail to keep a single one if the area was doubled. ”

“ The best angling, after all, is for the common brook trout, which is a bolder biting fish, and better for the table than the salmon trout. The cause of the great decrease in the large trout of this lake, is this:—in the autumn, when they have sought the shores for the purpose of spawning, the neighboring barbarians have been accustomed to spear them by torch-light; and if the heartless business does not soon cease, the result will be, that in a few years they will be extinct. ”

“ These trout are not properly lake trout, but the common brook trout. The largest ones are taken with live bait through the ice in winter. The Indians and the habitans bring them out of the woods from here and from Snow Lake, on their toboggans, from two and a half to three feet long. They have kinks and ways of their own. About half a mile above camp we discovered a deep oval bay to one side of the main current of the river, that evidently abounded in big fish. ”

“ The Rainbow Trout will live in warmer and more sluggish water than the Brook Trout, and for this reason it is being planted in many streams in the east, which are unsuitable for the Brook Trout. It is also being planted in many streams once inhabited by the Brook Trout, but because of the change due to civilization have become unsuitable for them. ”

“ Was it such a night as this that tempted men to leave their fellows for a hermitage? Such visions came to him as seldom visit men beneath a roof. At last he slept, and dreamed of the first trout he had killed in a little New England meadow-brook. He was filling a creel with bass from a fair Wisconsin lake. He was in a plunger off Montauk Point, striking the blue-fish. He was trolling for pike through Champlain, and casting a fly from a canoe on Adirondack waters. ”

“ In most of the mountain streams, and their branches, brook trout are quite abundant. They are not, however, so ravenously accommodating, as to bite just when they are wanted. I learned from the Indians that they would bite 182 best in foaming water, when they were unable to see the angler, or the bait distinctly; their curiosity stimulating their appetites. ”

“ There is a place in the pasture-lot where the brook stretches itself out in a long reach of still water. Above and below are rippling shallows. Wary as is his approach, the boy sees the shy trout darting from the riffles into the darker water. Patiently he dangles his baited hook by the side of a sunken log, and trails it temptingly back and forth before the coverts where the cunning fish lie hidden, but all in vain. They have learned by experience that the presence of a blue jumper and a blue pole spells out danger for them, and refuse to take any risks. ”

“ But it is only a question of time when the native trout will have disappeared from Colorado waters. Since the propagation of the California rainbow trout in these streams, and the eastern brook trout, he has in many localities already disappeared. The exchange is not a detriment. The rainbow trout grows to a great size here, specimens weighing twelve pounds being often caught. It is rapid in growth, game, and very fecund. ”

“ It belongs to the same genus as the Eastern brook trout, but grows much larger. It is found only on the Pacific Slope, in both lakes and streams, growing to twelve or fifteen pounds under favorable conditions. In the streams it is a gamer fish than in lakes, though the larger fish are rather lazy and logy. Compared with its Eastern relative it is hardly so vigorous on the rod, when of similar weight, and not quite so good for the table.
It takes the fly readily, also any kind of [110] natural bait, and in lakes or broad streams succumbs to the trolling-spoon. ”

“ The speckled beauty, as the brook trout is universally called, as a food fish is by many considered unsurpassed, the flesh being firm and well flavored. Others, however, regard it as only an occasional delicacy. ”

“ In the early summer the trout sports in rapids and swiftly running water, and in midsummer finds a retreat in deep, cool, and shaded pools. In August and September the females gather about the mouths of gravelly brooks, whither they resort to make their spawning beds.
With age the habits of the trout change. When young they associate in schools and play together constantly, usually choosing parts of the brook where the bottom is muddy, in which, if startled suddenly, they bury themselves for safety. ”

“ Doré and pike are also generally distributed over the whole area, and form an important source of food supply, though the sucker among the fishes, like the rabbit among the mammals, holds the most important place, as it can be caught everywhere, not only in the larger lakes but also in the smaller ponds and streams. Brook trout were actually caught only in Winisk river near its mouth, and in the streams running into Albany river, but were seen in the rapids below Weibikwei; the Indians assert that they occur also in the lake itself. ”

“ It is not so great a favorite as the other Western trouts, except in Alaska, where it is abundant in all lakes and streams.
The Brown Trout (Salmo fario)
The brown trout is the brook trout of Europe, and was introduced to the United States from England and Germany, under the auspices of the United States Bureau of Fisheries. Those from Germany (the eggs) , were donated by Von Behr, and his name was unfortunately applied to the fish as "Von Behr trout," also "German trout," two most unfortunate and ridiculous names. It is the "brook trout" of Europe and "brown trout" of Great Britain. ”

“ If it should prove to belong to the gravel, and to be artificial, it will carry back the antiquity of man to glacial times.
Selective breeding of fish seems at hand. Seth Green has crossed the striped bass with shad, herring with shad, whitefish with salmon, salmon with brook-trout, and brook trout with salmon-trout. The last cross is the most successful, and gives fine fish and good breeders. A cross between it and brook-trout promises to make a large trout, suitable for rivers and lakes. Mr. Green purposes next season to produce a seven-eighths brook-trout. ”

“ The practical fisherman only can appreciate the great diversity of activity which exists in fish of different sizes and streams, and probably in the same fish in the prime and end of the season. In one bickering rivulet the trout will all be vigorous and bold, leaping out of the water when hooked and dying hard, "game to the back-bone," in sporting phrase. In a sluggish brook the fish seem often to participate in its idiosyncracy, the larger ones tamely surrendering after a few monotonous struggles, the little trout diving to the bottom, and, like tench, hiding their heads in the mud. ”

“ Altogether, he was a most gallant and knightly little fish, and it would certainly have been a pity if he hadn't found a mate.
Nesting Grounds.
And now he started the third time for the gravelly shallow, and travelled as he had never travelled before in all his life. Streams are made to swim against—every [62] brook trout knows that—and the faster they run, the greater is the joy of breasting them. The higher the water-fall, the prouder do you feel when you find you can leap it. And our friend was in a mood for swimming, and for swimming with all his might. ”