(Salmo irideus agua bonita)
If there is any variety of the rainbow trout found on the Coast that
is entitled to a sub-specific name it is the golden trout of Mt.
Whitney. They were originally found in only a short portion of two
little streams fed by the snows of Mt. Whitney, and vary but little
from each other. In one stream they have been given the name of =Salmo
irideus agua bonita=, and in the other that of =Salmo irideus
rooseveltii=, after ex-president Roosevelt. They are of a beautiful
color with scarlet markings at the base of the fins and with a lateral
stripe of bright scarlet blending into a rich orange. One peculiarity
of these fish is that the par marks or vertical blotches on the sides
of other young fish still show on the adults of these. This form of
the rainbow has changed its color through the process of natural
selection, caused no doubt, by the color of the rocks in the shallow
streams it inhabits. Below on these same streams where the rocks are
of a darker color the fish assume the natural color of the rainbow.
The writer is possibly the first white man to ever catch one of the
golden trout. They were taken in 1865 with a small piece of the flank of
a deer skin slipped over the hook, with the hair clipped to about half
an inch in length. No sooner was this improvised fly cast upon the water
than it was eagerly seized by one of these beautiful fish. When it was
landed the color astonished me, and knowing that it was a trout, I
thought it must be a diseased one and threw it back. Making another cast
I secured another one as promptly as the first, and it being the same
objectionable color and of the same size--about eight inches--I
concluded that it was the same fish and this time threw it on the bank.
As fast as my deer skin fly would strike the water it would be eagerly
seized by one of these game little fellows and all of the same size and
color. I was puzzled and called to my companion, who was cooking our
supper but a few yards away, to "come and see what was the matter with
these fish." Professing some scientific knowledge, he cut one of them
open, examined the meat and the intestines and finally pronounced it in
a healthy condition, finishing with:
"The coffee is boiling and the bacon is fried; hurry up, and as soon
as you get a mess I'll fry them and take all chances."
I soon had a mess for supper and while he was frying them I caught
enough for breakfast, for the game little fellows would race for the
fly as fast as it struck the water. We ate them with a relish, for we
had had nothing but bacon, venison and frying-pan bread for a month.
As we found ourselves alive in the morning we increased the
prescription to a good alapathic dose for breakfast.
The golden trout are small, rarely reaching a length of more than
fifteen inches. The back is olive, sides and belly light orange or
golden yellow with a scarlet stripe along the center of the belly and
at the base of the pectoral, ventral and anal fins, which are of
themselves more or less of a golden color. Tail, olive, grading into
orange on the lower part. Few spots in front of the dorsal fin but
abundant behind it.
While the rainbow trout of the Coast have been given several
sub-specific names, such as =masoni= for the Coast streams of Oregon
and Washington, =shasta= and =stonei= for those of the upper
Sacramento basin, and =gilberti= for those of Kern river, there seems
to be so very little reason for this distinction beyond the usual
variations of color in all trout, spots and size with the changing
conditions of water and feed, that I shall make no mention of the very
slight variations upon which the ichthyologist has based the claim to
a sub-specific nomenclature.