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The story of Western

Reprinted from Swoet

THE MAGAZINE OF WESTERN LIVING

APRIL 1955 ISSUE

For Department of and Game, State of California

© Lane Publishing Co., 1955 THE ABOVE ILLUSTRATION IN BLACK APPEARED IN

Only three of our trout are imports: brook (Eastern relative of Dolly Varden), brown (from ), (from Middle West)

The story of Western Trout

For the novice fisherman, for the expert angler. . . and for the angler's wife. . . here are five native sons and three "strangers". . . pictured above in full fighting color. . . described on these pages as the angler knows them

THE MAGAZINE OF WESTERN LIVING APRIL 1955 58 SUNSET ILL COLOR IN ORIGINAL SUNSET MAGAZINE ARTICLE

Our Western natives (above, and top left) are the Dolly Varden, golden, cutthroat, rainbow, and steelhead (the sea-run rainbow)

No other wild creature is studied by so many Westerners. The what he swallows, be it grit-covered or fuzz-covered fisilerinen seek every scrap of evidence that might suggest when hook. He can see as well as we, perhaps, but no better; in the the trout is active, what he likes, what he dislikes, where he's vague, misty world above his rippled skylight there is no currently spending his time, and—of course—how he's biting. clarity of detail—only moving forms and shadows. It's nice to From birth to death, he never stops swimming. The deep, still picture him sighting a flying ephemeral insect from the dusky "hole" that may look like a perfect trout haunt to us may not depths, and rocketing out of the water to make the capture. be so inviting to him. Always hungry—and never getting Reputable anglers swear he does, but can't swear that he enough to eat—he may sometimes prefer the battering of the knows what he's jumping at. swift midstream current that brings morsels within reach in Last year, in the Mount Shasta fish hatchery, where colored most rapid succession. If nearby there is convenient refuge in tags were being attached to the dorsal fins of for the darkness of an undercut bank, or in a tangle of logs, so later identification, it was noticed that the fish sporting red tags much the better; and if he can lie in a shadowy eddy that were being attacked and killed by their fellows, and that in keeps whirling its flotsam before his sometimes finicky eye, every case it was the tag itself that was the object of the giving him ample opportunity to make careful selection—why, assault. that is room service indeed. Trout bearing tags of other colors went unmolested. Thus went But no suite is ideal without adequate ventilation; if the into a cocked hat the well established belief in the trout's lack current that brings food to the trout falls from high enough of color perception, while red feather and salmon egg common to ram air into his hole, he may settle down right there for shares took a decidedly bullish turn. life, always waiting and watching for his dinner. The trout can change color, in death as in life. Under the He is hungriest at breakfast time; unless there is a bright moon microscope, his hues break up into splatter-shaped pigment to see by, he must fast all night, and for a trout that is a long spots that are capable of expansion and contraction; the ones time. Sensibly, he tries to fill up just before nightfall, to last that are largest at the moment dominate the others and deter- the night through, and it is then that he is most heedless of mine the color of the skin on which they lie. Trout from dark APRIL 1 955 59 OREGON: How's the fishing... Every kind of water... in the 7 Western states? and every kind of trout

Here is a thumbnail report on trout Angler's Valhalla. Every kind of trout water, and just about every kind of fish. Rogue, Umpqua, Deschutes fishing streams and , stocking are hallowed words to every steelhead devotee. Wal- lowa Mountains, where Sierra-like conditions prevail, policies, seasons, license require- are experimental home for from Califor- nia. Native cutthroats still inhabit the Steens Moun- tains, in state's southeast corner. Eastern ments. Conclusion: on the right have brought good fishing to once-barren high lakes without inlets or outlets. and Dolly Varden day, on the right stream, at the right big but not abundant. Annual "catchable" plant now 1 2/2 million, mostly rainbow. Season April 30 to Octo- hole, you'll find the fishing's fine." ber 9, residents $4, nonresidents $15 (or 7 days, $5).

CALIFORNIA: NEVADA: Here are the most fish In this desert dry state, and the most fishermen 6 million plantings a year

Sierra Nevada, Cascade, Siskiyou, San Bernardino, Most of state's water in corner, but else- San Gabriel, Coast ranges; more fish than any other where there's more fishing than you'd think. Lakes Western state—and more fishermen. Leader in plant- and streams across northern edge of state, and in scat-. ing of "catchable" fish since creel checks of marked tered mountain ranges. About 6 million fingerlings fish showed more than 50 per cent caught same season and reared trout are planted annually. Walker Lake (not more than 2 per cent of planted fry and fingerlings cutthroats run 3 to 15 pounds. Increasingly saline are ever taken). Great steelhead rivers—Klamath, Pyramid Lake used to support giant cutthroats, now Trinity, Eel. Biggest problem: constantly increasing has very large rainbows, practically indistinguishable fishing pressure on diminishing trout habitat—dams, from -going steelheads. Nevada shares with Ari- water diversion, new mountain roads, grazing, logging, zona the trout fishing in below Davis fires. Main season April 30 (May 28 some areas) to Dam. Season May 15 to October 31; some waters in 15 Oct. 31. Resident license $3; 10-day nonresident $3. of 17 counties open all year. 5-day nonresident $3.50.

waters exhibit somber tones; from shallow, flashing brooks, and the angleworm and the caddis fly have changed little. they display the shadings of the spectral iridescence that Somewhere in the dim past, Western 's family tree wavers and dances in pebbly riffles. Their coloring is really branched into the two principal races that we know today— their surest protection against bears and otters and fishers and rainbow and cutthroat. bigger trout. Before ichthyologists decided to classify all native Western The trout is of the ancient and honorable order of Salmonidce, trout (except Dolly Varden, a char) under these two headings, which includes also the salmon, the ciscoes, and the Rocky more than 20 "distinct " were named in Western Mountain whitefish. We won't attempt to draw a sharp line America. between the chars (genera and Cristivonier) and the "true" (genus Salmo), because there are no external The characteristics by which we identify and separate the structural differences to distinguish one from the other and the "rainbow series" and the "cutthroat series" are not always only sure way to tell them apart on sight is by recognition of present. We have to assume that confusing borderline or the individual species. types belong in one group or the other, or perhaps both, in the Anatomically, the trout and his salmonoid brothers aren't too absence of evidence to the contrary. far up the evolutionary ladder of fishdom—not as far, in fact, The rainbow has no teeth on the hyoid, and usually can be as the humble catfish or even the despised carp. Adaptable and identified by the presence of the lateral red or pink stripe that mutable as they are, they are still lacking in all specialized gave rise to the name "rainbow." The rainbow is frequently organs and appendages and senses. They were contemporary heavier and stockier than the cutthroat, and almost always with the dinosaurs and flying reptiles in Cretaceous time. While more reckless in his search for food, more savage and enduring most life on this planet has changed much since then, the trout and spectacular when hooked. 00 STJNSET IDAHO: UTAH: The steelhead's longest Best fishing is in the swim from the Pacific high wilderness

Big mountains, big waters, big fish. Kamloops (rain- Limited trout waters, but they've produced record- bow) record stands at 37 pounds (), breaking fish. Logan River: world's largest brown mackinaw at 51 (Priest Lake). 600,000 pounds of trout, 37 pounds, 4 ounces. Fish Lake: lake trout, 42 trout, mostly rainbow, planted in 1953-4, some in pounds. Strawberry Reservoir: cutthroat, 28 pounds. barren lakes that had never been stocked before. Fish- Provo River, Duchesne River, and Mammoth and eries improvement program involves killing undesir- Assay creeks in Garfield County are popular. Moun- able species (carp, suckers, chubs, squawfish, which tain backbone running up middle of state from south- compete with trout for space and food) and replacing west corner has many small streams and lakes, but of them with rainbow trout. Rotenone, a toxic derivative 2,000 fishing lakes about half are in the high wilder- of the Javanese derris plant, is used. Steelheads' long- ness of the Uinta Range, source of 42 per cent of the est swim: into Idaho rivers. Summerf rasont June 4 to state's water. General season (some exceptions) May October 31, nonresident license $1 -day permit $3. 28 to October 9. Nonresident license $10, 5-day $4.

WASHINGTON: ARIZONA: This is steelhead country Fishing in the uplands . . the catch keeps climbing ... open season all year

Successful postwar stocking program brought winter Except for a short stretch of the Colorado below steelhead catch up from 23,000 in 1947-48 to more Davis Dam, and side streams flowing into the Colo- than 100,000 in 1951-52. New practice of raising fish rado in the Grand Canyon, Arizona trout waters are to seaward migrant size instead of releasing them as confined to the uplands of the central, eastern, and fry gets credit for the rapid improvement. Not all of southeastern parts of the state. Cutthroats (up to 13 Washington's copious sea-slope waters are outstand- pounds) in White Mountain lakes near Alpine. "Get- ing for trout fishing; many glacier-born streams are away-from-it-all" fishermen find rainbows and adven- too turbid to be ideal. In others from pulp- ture in Sycamore Canyon, Grand Canyon's Clear mills has been detrimental to steelhead. About half Creek, Tapeats Creek, •Thunder River. About 31/2 of state's annual 40-million game-fish plant is "silver million trout planted each year, of which nearly a mil- trout"—fresh-water sockeye salmon that dies after lion are "catchables." Open season all year, with local spawning. April 17-October 31. 7-day visitor $3. exceptions. Resident $2.50; non-resident $10, 5-day $5.

The cutthroat series is characterized by the presence of teeth slope or the Atlantic. Probably the transfers from one water- on the hyoid bone at the base of the tongue, and by red mark- shed to another are best explained by the phenomenon of ings (sometimes a bright slash, sometimes merely a faint dis- "stream capture," in which the direction of an area's drainage coloration) on the throat; hence the name "cutthroat." may be changed by obstructions such as glaciers and alluvial When either a rainbow or a cutthroat runs to the sea, he loses fans, by uplift or subsidence of the earth's crust, or by a steep- his distinguishing external characteristics and becomes a steel- flowing, fast-eroding stream that cuts back into the basin of a head. When we consider the marvelous evolutions and rever- less vigorous one. Some such action as one of these must have sions that may take place three or four times in the life of an given the cutthroat access to (or from) the headwaters of the individual fish, it is not hard to imagine that both species may Missouri and the Rio Grande. have developed from the same early stock during a period when By way of the ocean, cutthroats can now move from one the cutthroat-to-be experienced thousands of years of inland coastal stream to another in the Northwest, where they range isolation while the rainbow-to-be moved freely through the from Cape Mendocino to Alaska. Here we see the wonderful ocean from one coastal watershed to another. adaptability of the trout—the once landlocked desert fish has The habitat of the rainbow tends to be seaward and southward; made himself at home in the milky torrents of the Olympics, that of the cutthroat, inland and north. However, there is con- the transparent riffles of the Bitterroots, the pastoral oxbows siderable overlapping of their ranges; the Columbia River is a of the Willamette, Tahoe's unplumbed inky depths, and even seaway for cutthroats from the Rockies and an entry to the the tepid brackish breakers of the Salton Sea. Rockies for rainbows from the sea. Unlike the rainbow-steelhead, the cutthroat does not go very Cutthroats are native to both sides of the Continental Divide, far to sea. South of Cape Mendocino, where coastal rivers and we can't be sure whether they originated on the Pacific become fewer and farther between, the species is practically

APRIL 1955 61 unknown as a native, never having migrated far enough south to discover the Golden Gate and the Great Valley drainage of California's Sierra-Cascade-Siskiyou mountains. That is rainbow country. The rainbow long ago invaded most THE ANCIENT TROUT: of the domain of the cutthroat, but the cutthroat series is not represented in waters tributary to the Central Valley . In the life span of troutdom, the land we call the West Out of the experiments and bitter experiences of the past have has been submerged and has emerged again and again. come the fish-culture practices and conservation laws of the Mountains grew through the eops and, eons later, present. Trout are artificially propagated in every Western were worn flat—flat enough and low enough for the state, and planted by the millions in suitable waters. Idaho sea to sweep over them once more. Then out of the still has remote lakes awaiting "discovery" by the angler. sea came the continent at last, and the West as we In more crowded California, where most stocking is a know it began to take shape. put-and-take proposition, 80 per cent of a roadside plant of At long last the Sierra Nevada fault block began to "catchable-size" trout may end up in creels the same season, rise spectacularly; its rivers flowed directly into a notwithstanding the fact that three-fourths of the state's great gulf of the ocean where the Sacramento and annual catch is from self-sustaining populations of wild trout. San Joaquin valleys now lie. Trout could migrate Among fishermen and hatcherymen, the rainbow is by far the freely from the mouth of one stream to another, and favorite. It is the most daring and courageous trout, and all the way from the headwaters to the sea. therefore one of the easiest to hook, but, ounce for ounce, the To the north, the high barrier against the sea was toughest to bring to net. It is the easiest to propagate, rear, extended by a long anticlinal uplift crested with lively transport, and transplant. As an adult it is adaptable and volcanoes that were helping to build the Cascade wall. hardy, while at the same time sensitive and responsive to every change of environment. In most streams, a pound of rainbow The Pleistocene ice came, spreading down from the on the lightest tackle is enough for anybody. heights, and everything alive retreated before it. Trout streams tumbled at latitudes where there had CC been tropical swamps before. Then the earth warmed, . . . he really seems to the ice began to melt, and the meadows and forests and fish followed northward and upward. match wits with The Utah-Nevada basin was a land of lakes fed by glacial rivers. Today's Pyramid, Winnemucca, and Walker lakes in Nevada are the last scraps of ancient the angler. . ." Lake Lahontan; Great Salt Lake and smaller waters in Utah are all that remain of prehistoric Lake Bonne- ville's 19,000 square miles of surface. Also on this branch of the family tree are 's big Gradually, drying Lake Bonneville retreated into the Beardslee, the Northwest's giant Kamloops, and Tahoe's rare, vast depression of the Great Basin, completely cut off fabulous Royal Silver. from the Pacific. No longer could the incoming salts be flushed into the Snake River and out to sea; they Like many another aristocrat, the rainbow is choosy about its accumulated and concentrated in the lakes, forcing offspring's birthplace. Only in clean, cold, aerated shallow water the trout up the streams. running swiftly over a sand-gravel bed will it reproduce. Farther west there was no such crisis. Unlike the The cutthroat, right behind the rainbow in popularity at the sedimentary rocks of the Rockies, the granites and end of a taut line or on the table, is represented by such West- lavas of the Sierra's east slope contained almost no ern subspecies as Montana black-spotted, Rocky Mountain soluble minerals for the streams to carry into the spotted, Rio Grande, Colorado River, Utah, Yellowstone, Tahoe, and Crescenti. It is a cold-water fish, not quite so insistent on aeration and movement, and is often planted in slower water than the rainbow likes. According to some anglers, the less said about the West's other native, the Dolly Varden, the better. One of the most colorful thrashing runs or thrilling aerial leaps of the rainbow. of all our , it was named some 60 years ago by the wife We've avoided talking about sizes because size is probably the of a Sacramento River hotel-keeper, whom it reminded of a least significant clue to a trout's identity or desirability. But gaudily dressed character in Dickens' Barnaby Rudge. It has a now we come to an exotic whose main claim to fame is his size. bad reputation in some quarters because its presence is believed This is the Mackinaw or lake trout of the Great Lakes region, to be detrimental to other trout. It is a predatory fish, but what introduced many years ago into Lake Tahoe and more recently trout isn't? Ranging from northern California to Alaska, it is a into a number of the large lakes of Washington, Oregon, and good fighter and takes fly or bait readily. There is so much Idaho. This giant of all trout is a char that may weigh as much disagreement among "experts" as to whether the Dolly is fit as a hundred pounds, but since landing (or boating) one is to eat that the only way to find out is to try it yourself. something like hauling in a halibut with a winch, most trout There is little such bickering over our other char, the imported fishermen are more interested in the last, but by no means Eastern brook trout of the Atlantic coast. It is ordinarily a least, item on our list of Western trout. favorite and always a beauty. Unlike the native trouts, it The big fellow who darts up from the depths to meet your fly, doesn't go to salt water in the West. Since it is a fall spawner, puts on his brakes, looks it over, nuzzles the dimple it makes its young can be big enough for planting by spring. Because it on the water, slides under it, and settles back to the bottom will reproduce in still water, it is valuable for stocking high, like a submarine—while you hold your breath—is none other small lakes fed only by seepage, springs, or melting snow. For than the wily brown, educated in Europe by a hundred genera- this reason it has become known as a cold-water trout, although tions of fishermen. If you're lucky—very lucky—he may rise it adapts readily to warmer water and a wide variety of condi- again, make the one wrong decision of his life, and crash-dive tions. It eats almost anything, and earns its popularity the hard to the singing of your reel and the pounding of your heart. Of way—by clamping down eagerly on the first hook that comes mixed Scottish () and German descent, he's a along. It usually fights deep, without making the surface- delight to the purist—and a real prize. He really seems to 6 2 SUNSET sunny golden trout, blind trout (always dark), and convincingly varicolored adults of identical fry released into different sur- roundings. But the steelhead somehow anticipates his new environment long before he gets to it, and prepares himself Older than the West itself... for it without ever having seen the like of it. After two years of life in the ocean, he is ready to return to landlocked lakes. Mineralization of the water was slow the land and propagate his kind. —so slow, in fact, that the larger lakes still support populations of native trout in the midst of the desert. The first arrivals at the mouths of the estuaries, arriving almost simultaneously, are destined for the longest journeys—all the It was the glaciers that first forced the rainbows to way to the farthest headwaters, perhaps hundreds of miles withdraw from parts of their high mountain habitat. inland. For many of them this will be the second trip, for We know the trout were in the mountains ahead of some the third. Many weigh five pounds or more; a few exceed the Ice Age, for isolated fish communities lived all twenty. In the females, ova have barely started to form; it may through it, in ice-free ecological "islands," and survive be three months or more before mating time. today as distinctive strains on both the west slope of Leaping in impatient exhilaration, the trout move upstream, the Sierra (golden trout, from the rainbow series) and feed (and sometimes get caught) along the way, doggedly the east (Piute trout, a cutthroat). As the Ice Age bypassing the mouths of the tributaries that are reserved for waned, the fish were able to re-establish themselves later comers. Where the river forks, they split ranks and go on in some of the main stream channels left by the and on, breaking into smaller and smaller companies, always retreating glaciers, but the headwaters and side in proportion to the nesting space that is ahead. streams entered the rivers over impassable waterfalls or through impassable moraines; thousands of square Meanwhile, more are following. They enter the river carrying miles of ideal trout country remained barren of fish. more mature ova, as if in anticipation of a shorter trek, and they find that their predecessors have left undisturbed the less In the southern Sierra Nevada, there was little glacial remote nesting sites that the newcomers can reach in time. activity south of the present southern boundary of Side streams still too small to enter are left to later migra- Sequoia National Park, except in the canyon of the tions that will forge upriver with the onset of autumn rains. Kern River. There a long tongue of ice—fed by the Other trout still outside the surf line drift toward mouths of icefields between Mount Whitney and the Great smaller streams that are closed by sandbars. When the first Western Divide—pushed southward far below the freshets break through the barriers, they, too, fight their way altitude of the bordering plateaus. These ice-free high- into the oncoming currents. lands remained the soft-contoured Sierra of pre-glacial time. The golden trout, which may once have been the Eventually all return to the spawning beds, 5 miles or 500 typical representative of the rainbow group in the miles from the sea. But look—they're no longer steelheads: Sierra high country, was to survive there as a race their bodies have deepened and their rainbow colors have apart from all others, denied contact with its seagoing come flooding back. They are rainbow trout, and so will be downstream cousins by ice and post-glacial cliffs. their young. The female digs out a nest in the gravel while the male ;Wilds Nature was not finished with the Kern River's trout. guard to drive away intruders that might have an appetite The Kern slipped southward off its rising delta and for trout . Poised over her nest, the female drops a flood came to a dead end in Buena Vista Lake, and its trout of tiny eggs and the male releases a cloud of milt through which went to sea no more. Gradually they took on a new the eggs pass and are fertilized on their way to the nest. While dress and became the Gilbert trout; now the Kern the male stands guard, the female refills the nest with gravel. River's held two separate breeds that Thus begins the life cycle of a new generation. could neither mingle with each other nor with their cousins of the outside world. Rainbow-series, cutthroat-series, Dolly Varden, Eastern brook, lake, and brown—these are the Western trout. As food for the human stomach, they are delectable but of negligible importance. As food for the spirit—there is nothing else that can compare with them.

match wits with the angler; of all Western trout he's the hardest to catch. Where browns are planted in the same water with other trout, they are sometimes blamed for the disappearance of the other species, because will maintain themselves where other Salmo fail. Actually, the brownie is not particularly antagonistic toward his neighbors; he's simply wise enough to keep his big mouth shut while they're succumbing to the lures of their deadlier foe. Of all the fantastic stories told about trout, none is more fan- tastic than the unembroidered truth about the steelhead and his journey-from mountain birthplace to the sea and back. A reproduction of the trout painting on Until the spirit moves him, he's a rainbow, indistinguishable pages 58 and 59 suitable for framing from the other members of his tribe. When he heeds the call of Here's an opportunity for the fisherman to study his his ancient home and moves into it, he becomes a different fish. favorite quarry in the comfort of his own den. Our Sooner or later the blue-green or olive color of his back turns reproduction is printed in full color on heavy coated to steely blue. The spots disappear from his body and fins; his paper, with extra white space around the edges to give carmine stripe fades to silver; his underparts take on a metallic you a choice in size of frame. Send 50c for 1 or $1.00 luster. His body grows longer, but not much deeper. Once in for 3 to Lane Publishing Co., Menlo Park, California. salt water, he's a marine fish through and through. We are told that trout, though possibly colorblind, tend to assume the shades they see, and in evidence we are shown the

APRIL 1955 63