The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-01-15
FISH IN A RACE WAR.
TIE STRUGGLE FOR SUPREMACY
HETWEEN TROUT AND CRAWLING.
success of the SpeckIed Fighter,
Gradual Disappearance of Its Ri
From the New York Post.

Lansing. Mich.-Up in the cold, clear
streams of Michigan, where the vandal
umberman has desecrated the great pine
forests and left nothing but bare stumps,
haired logs and a few old trails, another
aet of vandalism is now going on. This
lime the destruction is in the streams;
In the deep holes at the bends, and on
The rifles, where the icy water dances
over long stretches of white sand. The
object of this savagery is the silvery little
Crawling, as gamy a fish as ever broke
A leader. It is war of determination,
and the law of the survival of the fittest
as being demonstrated. The trout is fit
leet. and not only survives, but grows fat
in this war with his silvery little rival
A few years ago the trout and grayling
were not found in the same streams. The
latter occupied exclusively the Au Sable
and the Manistee with their branches
Both are important streams, rising in the
northern part of the state, and flowing
southwark. Their sources are on the hight
Of land between Lakes Michigan and HUI
ron While they both flow in a southerly
direction, the Au Sable turns to the east
ward. emptying into Lake Huron, while
she Manistee flows to the west and pours
Its waters into Lake Michigan. Along the
hundreds of miles of each there Were or
iginally great forests of huge pine trees.
I,umbermen saw the commercial value of
9he streams, and soon had the logs and
driftWood cleared from each.
When the logs ceased TO jam the stream
sDortsmen donned wading boots and be
gan to whip the whirlpools and rifles with
the fly 1t was great sport they found,
TOO Men who had caught grayling in
Norway and pronounced them the gamiest
fish in the world, rushed 10 the Manis-
tee and the Au Sable TO renew their ac
ouaintance with the little fighters. Men
came who had caught grayling in Mon
tana; trout fishers, looking for a new kind
of sport came also
There was a wonderful charm in this
new kind of fishing, amid the cold clear
beauty of the streams, the isolation, the
barren plains, and the desolate Old pine
stumps. There was an uncertainty about
landing the grayling that made some peo-
pie declare that trout fishing was tame
beside it. Many fishermen said that to land
half the fish one hooked was to do well.
The grayling is about as large the
trout, weighing from a few ounces" TO two
and a half pounds. Its food is the same
as that of the trout. AS a pan fish it is
scarcely distinguishable from the trout,
and many connoisseurs say they cannot
tell which is the better. Methods of talk
ing the two fish are practically Identical.
Where the stream has Undiscovered
banks, the sportsman wades. The gray
ling bites with all the mad voracity OF
the trout and when hooked fights even
more desperate. One authority expert
menting with hook and line attached TO
a spring balance declared that the gray
ling is able to pull twice as hard as the
trout However this may be, it is much
more difficult than the trout to land, You
can pun a trout again the current with
some hope of landing him. You can even
lift one not too large from the water, but
don't try such tactics on the grayling. Its
mouth is ever so tender, and sharp
pull against the current or an attempt to
lift it out of the water by the line will,
four times out of five, cause you 90 curse
your stupidity.
The grayling does not look at all like
the trout. 1t is covered with scales, which
are as bright as silver and shine like bur
nish metal when in the water. 1t is also
much smaller than the trout.
The men who went to the Manistee to flsh
start in the morning and fish down stream
as far as desired and find log-drivers'
path by which to walk home. 1t was
poor days fishing that did not give fifty
Crawling per man. But some brilliant des-
cendant of the slayer of the goose that
laid the golden egg saw chance to better
the sport; so he impressed upon the hsh
commission that it would be grand thing
to stock the Manistee and the Au Sable
with trout. The commission was looking
for most anything that could be stocked,
for it was not a very old or well-estab-
lished commission then, and into those
streams it poured several thousand small
trout. The commissioners agreed that
TWO kinds of fish so similar would thrive
III the same streams, and the sportsmen
who encouraged them began to imagine
what the fishing would be like when
those trout grew up.
Three years later sportsmen began to
take trout out of the two streams. Inc
trout We're large enough to kill. and OF
pretty nearly uniform size. The next three
years showed a most remarkable develop
ment IN the size of the trout. Ordinarily
one weighing half a pound would have
petn rare at six years, but here we\ many
mat ran a pound, and even more. ~ 1893
sportsmen were catching good-sized trout
ana grayling at the same cast, and
'nost exciting catch it was when one OF
saen tried TO swallow a fly on the same
leader Two years later, in 1895, it was
noticed that in many branches of the two
streams the trout Were more numerous
yuan the graying. Old fishermen VINO
uWelt on the rivers and some students OF
Hsh life began to notice that there was
'O pcdce IN the pools. n deadly race war
was IN progress. A school of small gray
ing would suddenly be thrown into COM
motion by the appearance of a good-sized
trout which, open-mouthed, would dash
AZ me little beauties, grab one, carry II
T." 10 some convenient place and swallow
ne mouth Of the trout is large, and
Sll-lnch trout has been seen to Kill
siayAng nearly half its own size.
neh these facts were discovered the
NAlehers ceased to wonder at the rapid
si'"Ih OF the trout. A hungry grayhng
WIN take small trout, but its mouth is
small, and the largest grayling can
-'IoeIy get away with a trout more than
'F or three inches in length.
'"s season the results were more evil
u' man ever before. In Bear Creek
' me Cannon, branches of the Manis-
sfayling have become very scarce
mere are no better streams for trout
" "c state than these same creeks that
'" years ago never saw one of the
N.ed beauties. Near the headwaters
' Manistee, the judge of probate and
" tA hNer of kaikas took 100 mounds Of