The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-12-07
THE STEELHEAD TROUT.
Game and Food Fish Which Should
Be Protected at This Season.

Game and Food Fish Which Should
Be Protected at This Season.
If the merchants who deal in fish are
permitted to have their own way regarding
the naming and classification of fishes
there certainly will be no need of fish
law, as the fish-dealers will regulate mat
tiers pscatorial and otherwise in such
way as to kill the goose that lays the
golden egg, so to speak.
The fish merchants have combined to
destroy, if possible, law which was made
solely to protect steelheads when they
were on their winters run to the fresh
water streams, where they spawned, and
returned again in the spring of the year to
salt water.
The young of this fish afford anglers who
whip the coast streams much EMO
in the summer season. and as conse-
quence the fishers are interested IN the
outcome of the present contest between
the Fish Commissioners and the hsh mer-
chants.
The fish law was made to protect fish
from total extinction. If the denizens OF
the streams had no protection the net
fishermen who live by the sale OF their
catch, and the poachers who cannot under
stand the good of protection at any time
and at any season, would destroy In few
years the anadromous fishes OF every
stream that empties into salt water.
OF course if there had been no fish law IN
existence there would be no need now Tor
q controversy between the Fish Commits
sioners and the fish dealers as to whether
a steelhead is trout or salmon simply
because there would be such a small num-
Der of those fish remaining that the fish
dealers would give the matter little or no
attention.
Professors Jordan and Gilbert of the
Stanford University have time and again
explained in the cleareSt manner possible
the difference in the habits and structural
character of salmon and steelhead
trout. The fishes are very much unlike in
every particular and it would be consld-
cred an insult to such learned gentlemen
as Professors Jordan and Gilbert for a cou1I-
try lawyer, who probably had never seen
a steelhead in his life excepting when the
fish was produced in court, TO contend that
the acknowledged authorities on fishes In
America had made most serious mistake
in classifying the most valuable of our
game and food fishes
According to recent decision given by
Judge in Eureka. Hum boldt County, the
steelhead is salmon and may be slaugh-
tered by net fishermen when 1t is on its
journey to spawning beds.
1t would certainly be matter of much
interest and curiosity to the anglers and
scientists of this country if the learned
legal and piscatorial authority of Hum
boldt County would contribute to one of
Eureka's newspapers letter giving his
ideas of the steelhead and why he consid-
ers it mem Der of the salmon family, and
if it is just and right that it should be
taken and killed by net fishermen when on
mission for the purpose of reproducing
its species.
1t will be remembered that few years
age the Fish Commissioners, with the as
sistance of A. Y. La Motto of the San
Francisco and North Pacific Coast Rail
road, put a stop to net-hshing at the
mouth of the Russian River. The result
is that the headwaters OF this grand river
are now we'll stocked with young steel
heads, and anglers from this City and
elsewhere who visit the streams that
empty into this river during the angling
season leave many dollar in the towns
that are within easy access of the best
trout streams. -Four years ago, before the
steelheads could ascend the river, it was a
rare thing to hear of trout being taken
from streams that are now known to be
splendid angling waters.