Millheim Journal. [volume] (Millheim, Pa.) 1876-1984, 1879-08-07


Trout go up the Truckee river in Califor.
mia in schools Of thousands towards their
spawning beds, If unimpeded in Their
course they would separate into number
less crystalline trout brooks and deposite
their spawn far up the stream, out of reach
of sawdust or fishermen. But just at the
! foot of the Sierra Nevada, in the State OF
Nevada, close to the California line, is the
| Verdi dam. This dam has been constructed
10 supply fine sawmill with water power,
and great precaution was taken TO arrange
a suitable flshway at one end. The water
is made to flow over sort of apron, or
plank floor, which has such gradual in
cline that any fish can ascend. This fish
way is further improved by means of the
rocks and earth of the river bank. There
is large pool or eddy just at the foot and
lower side of the apron, where the fish col
lect in great numbers to rest preparatory to
making the final leap, or struggle, which
carries them over the dam. The fishermen,
however, fastened two or three heavy
planks just along the upper edge of the
apron, and so the trout find an impossible
wall at the place where they should enter
the reservoir above the DAM Thus the fish
are Imprisoned. Such restless, impatient,
struggling prisoners as are these mountain
trout cannot be found elsewhere. They at
tempt to leap over the main dam, only to
be hurled back by the falling water. They
spring fully five feet in the air, and strike
the main apron of the dam with terrific and
frequently fatal force. They bruise their
bodies and heads until oftentimes they die.
They learn nothing from experience, but
continue to jump against the dam, until,
worn out and nerVeless, they drift, COM
pletely exhausted, into the eddies formed
by the piers of the dam. One can watch
for hours these poor, desperate things in
their brave struggles to get over the dam,
without having moment elapse in which
some trout is not leaping through the air
and against the dam Generally from one
to dozen fish are visible at the same time.
1t is grand but pitiful sight to watch
the great speckled beauties in their vain
endeavors to get over the dam. But the
pitiful merges into the horrible when one
sees the merciless grabhooks let down into
the struggling, quivering, exhausted masses
of trout gathered in the eddies below the
piers. By means of the short, unyielding
rod, succession of quick upward jerks is
given to the four hungry points of the grab
hook. The water is full of foam from the
cascade, and circles in binding whirl around
the pool. The fish are crazed and blinded
by their fruitless, frantic leaps, and readily
drift against the sharp, needle-like points of
the barbed hooks. Once impaled, the
struggle begins The hook may have
entered underneath the head. or the body,
or it may have pierced the side or the fins,
or the tail. At the first moment of its
fright the startled fish dar,s away with
fury of strength that is marvellous. A large
fish is almost ungovernable during the first
frenzy of its death struggle. The fisher
mans only plan is to let the trout weary
itself with it's madhennd plnngns and leaps
and struggles, and then by deXtrous
twitch lands it on the pier. More than
half the time the fish makes some terrible
bound and tears himself from the hook, on
ly to float with the current, torn, mangled,'
and dying.