Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1900-01-20
THE EAST MONMOUTH HATCHERY.
What Superintendent Berry Says Of the Work
There, This Season.

Mr. Wallace E. Berry. the
efficient superintendent of the
East Monmouth fish hatchery
was in the city, Yesterday
In conversation with Journal re-
porter Mr.. Berry stated that tbe
hatchery had at the present time
SoS,oo0 young trout. This is a smaller
NUMBER than We're there a wear ago
When there were 100000. The differ
| ence, Is due to the low water of the
past season which prevented the large
| trout from coming up from the lake.
VI course only comparatively small
percentage of the large trout come up
The brook, and yet Mr.. Berry secured
lor the purposes of the hatchery the
past year no less than 252 of them.
some of them weighing nearly eight
pounds. About 100. 900 trout eggs will
De shipped from East Monmouth to
the Caribou hatchery in the course of
a few days. The East Monmouth
hatchery expects soon to receive
2oo,oO0 salmon eggs from the Sebago
lake and Auburn hatcheries
DO you think Mr.. Berry" asked
the Journal reporter, that the screen
at the Cobbosseecontee outlet is doing
effective work? There are people in
this section who appear to think that
it is not, and who express the belief
that the rather tame fishing of the
last season or two has been due to
this fact"
II have no question" was the reply.
but what the screen is doing first
class work. There has been a dispo-
sition to compare the fishing in Cob
bosseecontee with the fishing at Long
pond. but the fact must be remem-
bered that the work of stocking those
waters began many years ago. while
that at CobbOssee is of comparatively
recent date, the bulk of it having been
done during the past three or four
years. CobboSseecontee is large
body ofwateran it will require time as
we'll as careful stocking to secure
first-class results, but if the work is
kept up good results are sure to
come
DO not the pickerel destroy great
many of the young trout"
"t nquestionably so. Pickerel are
always found in greater or less num-
bers around the mouths of brooks, and
prey quite largely upon the young
fish that come down into the lake"
is there no practical way of get
ting rid of them
We'll, it would not be a very easy
task Probably more Of them could be
destroyed by spearing in the spring
than by any other method. The black
bass, however, help US out a good deal
in this work. as they destroy very
many pickerel in the course of a year
Unlike the trout the pickerel go into
the shoals on the shores to spawn
Here, too, are the spawning beds of
the bass. The bass and the horn-pout
are the only two fishes that protect
their young. Whenever, therefore.
a pickerel ventures upon the bass
spawning ground during the season
it is pretty sure death for him. The
bass also destroy a great deal of pick
erel spawn and many of the young
fish. If it Were not for the black bass
in Cobbosseecontee the conditions for
trout stocking would be vastly worse
than they are today"
Journal readers who go to East
Monmouth could not spend a more
interesting hour or two than to visit
Mr.. Berry at the hatchery. His work
there has been characterized by
marked success, and the results of it
are beginning to be widely known and
appreciated.