Lake trout

“ Our brook trout usually spawn from November to January on Long Island, in the early part of the day, while the lake trout, improperly called "salmon trout," spawn at night, thus preventing hybridization by means of drifting milt. About 8 a. m. we place a net at the foot of the spawning race and drive the fish that have run up for nesting into it. They are then put into tubs and assorted. The males are put together; the females that appear to be ripe are placed in other tubs, and those which are not near ripe are returned to the pond. A ripe male is known by its slim body and bright color ”

“ Of the trout, the largest species in Lake Superior is called the lake trout, and they vary from ten to sixty pounds in weight. Their flesh is precisely similar to that of the salmon in appearance, and they are full as delicious as an article of food. The Indians take them in immense quantities with the gill-net during the spring and summer, where the water is one hundred feet deep; but in the autumn, when the fish hover about the shores for the purpose of spawning, the Indians catch them with the spear by torch-light. They also have a mode of taking them in the winter through the ice. ”

“ I have taken trout out of water that would have pulverized a golf ball in five minutes. The fiercer the current—the greater the tumult—the more cruel and savage the rocks, the better place it is for trout.
Neither do I remember that we took anything in the Shelburne above Irving Lake, for it was a good deal like the stillwater, with only a gentle riffle here and there. Besides, the day had become chill, and a mist had fallen upon this lonely world—a wet white, drifting mist that was closely akin to rain. On such a day one does not expect trout to rise, and is seldom disappointed. ”

“ In many of the larger inland lakes of Michigan lake-trout may be found, and summer visitors vary the sport of bass fishing with excursions after trout. Early in the season these fish are found in shallow water, along the shore, and may be taken by ordinary trolling; but as the weather grows warm the trout retreat to the deepest part of the lake, where they can be captured only by some unusual means. The method employed does not appeal strongly to a true sportsman, but he can afford to try it, once, at least, for the sake of the novelty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Close under the hotel an angler now and then catches a trout of over a pound weight, and in a lake a few miles off in the park is rewarded with speckled fellows of fine size, and with lake trout not infrequently running up to forty pounds. I met at Glacier Mr. E. S. P., of Chicago, with his family going west. He caught a fine lot of fish in Devil's Lake near Banff, one a lake trout weighing thirty-six pounds. There are few mountain resorts offering so many natural attractions as this Rocky Mountain hot spring.
The mountains around are nearly all built of horizontal stratified rocks. ”

“ Within a few hours' ride, also, are trout streams in the southern counties of New York State and in Pennsylvania, although the former are so often visited that the fish have not time to grow large. The New England boy finds trout brooks in western Connecticut, in northern Massachusetts, and in the Cape Cod region, in northern New Hampshire and Vermont, and especially in Maine. Once, almost every stream and lake in New England contained trout. But forests were cut down, and some of the streams dwindled until they went dry in summer. ”

“ A railroad proceeds from Kaslo to Sandon in the heart of the mountains, and to Slocan Lake and thence to [Pg 296] Nakusp on the upper Arrow Lake. The scenery of Slocan Lake is even more wild and rugged than that of the Kootenai. Both abound in fine trout. We saw a lake trout at Nelson of a weight of twenty-two pounds. Ducks and geese and swan are common on the water, limitless grouse and pheasants are found in the woods, while deer, elk, and bear are common in the wild maze of mountains and cañons;—a sportsman’s paradise. ”

“ Everywhere the steep rocky shore invites more intimate acquaintance; its caves may be entered, some afoot, at least one afloat. The lake is well stocked with rainbow trout, some of them descendants of the youngsters which Will G. Steel laboriously carried across country from Gordon's Ranch, forty-nine miles away, in 1888. They are caught with the fly from shore and boat. A pound trout in Crater Lake is a small trout. Occasionally a monster of eight or ten pounds is carried up the trail to the Lodge. ”

“ Emptying into the Scaroon River, just below the lake, is a superb mountain stream, known as Trout Brook. It is thirty feet wide, twelve miles long, and comes rushing down the mountains, forming a thousand waterfalls and pools, and filling its narrow valley with an everlasting roar of music. Not only is it distinguished for the quality and number of its trout, but it possesses one attraction which will pay the tourist for the weary tramp he must undergo to explore its remote recesses. ”

“ Sea, lake, brook (brown or "mud") trout are found in such abundance in every part of the island as to exceed imagination. There are ponds (Newfoundlanders so designate even expansive lakes) lying within a mile or two of railway stations which are practically unfished. A telegrapher at Brigus Junction, east of St. John's, sallied forth on a June morning to one such lake and returned shortly after noon with fifteen dozen trout weighing half a pound to over a pound each. A Newfoundland trouter always refers to his catch in dozen lots. ”

“ And when the beautifully browned fish were eaten, the pink meat looking so dainty, every one declared that when it came to sweetness, the trout raised in the clear cold waters of Lake Superior had no rival.
But then that is what hungry campers are saying up in Maine, in the Adirondacks, and in various other places where trout abound—they are always the finest in the whole world, when you have your appetite along with you and the odor of supper is wafted to you on the wind that shakes the foliage of the pine and hemlock. ”

“ A May morning out on Crummock, the fly rod laid aside in despair for the moment with its capricious little trout, though the compensations forbid so untoward a word; the boat drifting idly with gently gurgling keel upon the faint ripples stirred by the very softest of zephyrs; the distant murmur of the Cocker splashing toward the lake head; the faint dull roar of Scale Force, and, above all, the silent throng of overhanging mountains fairly pealing with the cuckoo's note, is a memory always to be treasured. ”

“ Among the Gulf States Florida holds first place in the fishing industry. Of the fish output of the Pacific States, about half is represented by salmon. Herring, lake trout, and yellow perch are the leading products of the Great Lakes division. The period of greatest development in this region was from 1880 to 1885, when the number engaged in the industry and the value of the production increased 100 per cent. The yield of the Mississippi Valley exceeds in quantity and nearly equals in value the combined production of the remaining interior waters of the United States, except the Great Lakes. ”

“ It is embosomed among mountains, and the fountain head of the Cold River, which empties into the St. Lawrence. In form it is so nearly round, that its entire shore may be seen at one view; the bottom is covered with 87 white sand, and the water is perfectly cold and clear. Considering its size, it is said to contain more trout than any lake in this wilderness; and it is also celebrated as a watering-place for deer and moose. In fishing from the shore, one of our party caught no less than forty pounds of trout in about two hours. ”

“ CHAPTER VI. The finest trout-fishing in the world is to be obtained at Lake Superior; although larger fish may be killed in the lakes and streams of Maine, and greater numbers in the brooks of New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, and Pennsylvania, nowhere is to be found the same abundance of trout, averaging above two pounds, and wonderfully game and vigorous, and nowhere a more beautiful region to explore or pleasanter waters to fish over. The entire rocky shore of the lake, along both coasts, is one extensive fishing-ground, where the skilful angler can at any point find delightful sport ”

“ At the foot of Elk Lake lived an old man who was a past-master in the art of taking these deep-lying trout, and to him the visitor turned when he grew satiated with bass fishing and sighed for new worlds to conquer. The old fisherman has a big, heavy boat, in the back end of which he has fixed a windlass holding a thousand feet of fine, copper wire. The trout are lying in about three hundred feet of water, and no ordinary line will allow the trolling spoon to sink deep enough to reach those dim recesses. ”

“ At the Island of Mackinaw the common trout are not found at all, but in all the streams upon the main shore of Lake Michigan, which is only a short distance off, they are very abundant and very large.
Another trouting region whose praises we are disposed to sing is that of northern New York, lying between Lake George and Long Lake. All the running waters of this section of country are abundantly supplied with common trout, and all the lakes (which are quite numerous) with salmon trout. The scenery everywhere is of the wildest and most imposing character. ”

“ The streams that run into Lake Superior are alive with trout, and next summer I propose to go up there and roast until I have so thoroughly saturated my system with trout that the trout bones will stick out through my clothes in every direction and people will regard me as a beautiful toothpick holder.
Still there will be a few left for those who think of going up there. All I will need will be barely enough to feed Albert Victor and myself from day to day. People who have never seen a crowned head with a peeled nose on it are cordially invited to come over and see us during office hours. ”

“ It can be made a headquarters, if you wish, and thence you may make easy runs farther into the wilderness. With sweet air, pure water, grand scenery and trouting, what more can mortal ask when he is tired and the baby teething?
Though injured, the lakes are by no means depleted; the fishing is not quite so gratifying as it was twenty years ago, that is all. There are three different varieties of native trout here: the red or salmon-tinted, the lighter-colored variety, and a slender, active trout, different from the denizens of any other waters in the State except, perhaps, Trapper's Lake. ”

“ It was Tupper Lake, by our calculation, and it was on the opposite side that Tobeatic Brook was said to enter. There, if anywhere, we might expect to find the traditional trout. So far as we knew, no one had looked on these waters since the old lumbering days. Except for exploration there was no reason why any one should come. Of fish and game there were plenty in localities more accessible. ”

“ Ray and Bruce had not expected to catch brook trout and pickerel in Lake Superior, but Ganawa informed them that these fish may be caught in many places near shore in shallow water, but that they are never caught in nets set in deep water far from shore.
Rainbow trout found along the shore in Lake Superior are called “coasters” by fishermen and explorers at the present time, as has been told. These trout as well as pickerel come into the lake from the many streams that enter Lake Superior. They continue to feed along the shore, but never go into the deep water away from shore. ”

“ The lake is fearfully deep—the Indians insist that in places it is bottomless—and it is teeming with trout, the most delicious mountain trout that can be caught any place, and which come up so cold one can easily fancy there is an iceberg somewhere down below. Some of these fish are fourteen or more inches long. ”

“ On the other hand, a year or two ago, a beginner took a four-pound trout there with the fly. If such trout exist in Borlan, it is hard to explain the presence of the innumerable fry. One would expect the giants of the deep to keep down their population. Not far off is another small lake, Loch Awe, which has invisible advantages over Loch Borlan, yet there the trout are, or were, “fat and fair of flesh,” like Tamlane in the ballad. Wherefore are the trout in Loch Tummell so big and strong, from one to five pounds, and so scarce, while those in Loch Awe are numerous and small? ”

“ Excepting a little hamlet at its head, and two or three farms at the southern extremity, it is yet surrounded with a wilderness of mountains. The waters thereof are deep and clear, and well supplied with fish, of which the salmon-trout and pike are the most valuable. The trout are more abundant here than in Lake George, but owing to the prevailing custom of spearing them in the autumn, they are rapidly becoming extinct. I made a desperate effort to capture one as a specimen, but without success, though I was told that they varied in weight from ten to fifteen pounds. ”