THE BROOK TROUT'S RIVAL
When the German brown trout was introduced in the brook trout streams
of Pennsylvania some years ago fly-fishermen condemned the act because
they believed the brook trout (_S. fontinalis_) was superior to the
brown trout as a game fish. Deforestation, rendering the streams too
warm for the brook trout, has changed the fly-fisherman's feeling in
the matter. The brown trout can thrive in warm water, and with the
brook trout's gradual extermination the brown trout is being welcomed
as the next best thing. A correspondent at Reading, Pa., signing
himself "Mourner"--he mourns the passing of the true brook
trout--declares the brown trout strikes harder than the brook trout
and after being hooked, unlike the brook trout, makes two or three
leaps out of the water, but is not so gamey and cunning as the brook
trout and tires out much quicker. The German species has been popular
because it attains a larger size quickly and destroys almost every
fish in the streams, including the brook trout. "The fly-fishermen who
for years have matched their skill, cunning, artifice, and prowess
against the genuine brook trout that since creation dawned have
inhabited the mountain brooks that flow down every ravine," says
Mourner, "have had forced on them, as never before, the sad truth
that, like the deer, bear, quail, woodcock, and grouse, brook trout
are slowly but surely passing. There never was a fish so gamy,
elusive, and eccentric, so beautiful and so hard to deceive and
capture by scientific methods as the native brook trout. No orator has
yet risen to fully sound its praises; no poet to sing its merits as
they deserve; no painter to produce its varied hues. The brook trout
was planted in the crystal waters by the Creator 'when the morning
stars sang together' and _fontinalis_ was undisturbed, save as some
elk, deer, bear, panther, or wildcat forded the shallows of his abode,
or some Indian or mink needed him for food. In this environment the
brook trout grew and thrived. Much warfare made him shy and suspicious
until he became crafty to a degree. The brook trout successfully
combated man's inventive genius in the shape of agile rods, artificial
flies and other bait calculated to fool the most wary, and automatic
reels, landing nets, and other paraphernalia designed to rob a game
fish of 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' But it was not
until the tanner and acid factory despoiler turned poisoned refuse
into the streams and the dynamiter came upon the scene and the
sheltering trees were cut away by the lumberman, letting in the sun
and warming the water to a nauseous tepidity, that the brave trout
faltered, hesitated, and then quit the uneven conquest. Carp and bass
were planted in the streams to further endanger the brook trout's
existence. Next the California trout and the German brown trout, who
prey upon the true brook trout's progeny, followed, till finally,
beaten, baffled, dismayed, poisoned, routed, and overwhelmed by the
superior numbers and size of a cannibalistic race, he gradually began
his retreat. It is good-bye to the brook trout now. With him it was
either cool pools, solitude, and freedom, or extermination. The waters
that pour down into larger streams are sad memories now of his school
playgrounds. No more will the sportsman's honest hunger be appeased by
the brook trout's fine-grained flesh from hardening waters of nearby
mountain brooks. But memory of the brook trout cannot be wrested from
those who knew him at his best, and braved personal danger from
rattler, bear, and wildcat to win him from the crystal waters. The
brook trout has been butchered to make a carp's holiday. Gone he may
be now, but he will live forever in the dreams of all true fishermen
as the real aristocrat of the mountain streams. The like of him will
not soon be seen again." The Fish Commission has mastered the science
of the artificial propagation of the brook trout--millions are now
produced with little trouble and expense--and the stocking of waters
is a common practice, but the Fish Commission can't propagate forests
and woodland streams. Mourner must know that the brook trout itself is
not hard to save; it is the preservation of its wild habitat that is
the great puzzle. If the United States Forestry Department will
protect the trout streams from the greedy lumberman, the factoryman,
and acid maker, the Fish Commission will have no trouble in saving the
brook trout.