The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1906-06-09
WHO CAN CURE SICK TROUT?
COMMIITEE OF SPORTING OUUS
WILL BUY THE PANACEA.

DepOpulated Many of the FavOrite
Fishing Ponds.
Who has a panacea to keep in good
health the trout in retaining ponds at
the private fishing clugs? There is
market waiting for the boon. Trout
fishing has been unusually good this
spring in the preserves Of the sporting
clubs on Long Island and throughout
New York State, but there is an I'M
certainty as to what the season will
bring forth among all the clubmen..
For several seasons, hitting first one
club and then another, malady has
broken out among the fish in the re-
tanning ponds and killed them off by
thousands. Every club that has been
visited by the plague has tried every
remedy suggested by the experts to
avoid recurrence Of the infection,
which seems to be most severe on the
likeliest trout in the pens, while in the
clubs that have thus far been free
every effort is being undertaken to
maintain a clean bill of health The
malady comes like thief in the night
and the fear of it is the over present
worry of the committeeman.
1t never attacks trout turned to for
age for themselves in the ponds and
brooks that the members fish in, but
only the reserve stock kept in the sup
ply ponds. Although at every club there
is limit on the daily catch of each
member, ranging from twelve to twenty
trout day to each rod, in the season
the aggregate catch at large private
club viii run to 10000 fish or more, at
the minimum weight limit Of five
eighths of a pound. To keep the fish
ing good a great number Of trout must
be turned loose each spring from the
retaining ponds At the largest Long
Island club which has its own hatch
cries, more than $4,000 trout were
caught last season. This club matches
out 100000 fry each year and 100000
trout are turned into its fishing pre-
serves as three-year-old every spring,
the surpls being sold to other clubs.
Under artificial propagation all but 5
per cent. of the trout eggs are Matched
out, the reverse of the breeding situa-
ton among the wild trout, when only
the minimum percentage is developed.
The clubs that do not keep up hatch
ing plants buy the trout needed as
fingerlings and keep them in retaining
ponds until they are of the age and
size desired by the committee, when
they are passed on to the fishing wa
ters, to enjoy life while they can and
end.
In each retaining pond there is a con-
stantly flowing stream of pure water,
fed from a supply pipe, and the bottom
is usually of clean sand. The fish are
fed regularly, with chopped liver, white
BAIT or other provender, but everything
is done to make the colonies as near to
the simple life Of nature as circum-
stances warrant. Board walks are
about each retaining pono, which may
better be described as tanks or sluiee-
ways, and there are scapnets at hand
to lift out the fish and examine them
if necessary.
not see fish showing indications of i'll
health" remarks clubman, but on
returning a couple of hours later there
may be two or three floating with gills
up and dying on the water. BY watch
ing very closely a fish may be seen to
show discoloration about the roots of
the fins, especially if over white sand,
and this denotes the presence of the
disease. Out of water the dark patches
are found to be due to a.gummy color
less secretion, and this is also appar-
ent on the dead fish,"
segregation is the only cure, after
an immersion in salt BRINE, and in the
early stages this is said to be a reli-
able remedy. The fish showing spots,
or under suspicion, are scooped out one
at time and placed in tub of salt
water for as long period as is pos
sibe without killing them They are
then turned into hospital retaining
pond to await results, Sods of marsh
grasses, roots and all, are placed in
these ponds, and the fish seem to bene-
fit in some mway from the process.
Wheather they eat the grfass, as a sick
dog munches turf, or feed on some ami
maculae that livee in the sods is not
determined That they cleanse their
bodies on the grasses is another theory.
To place sods of marsh grasses in the
retaining ponds is also said to be
preventive of the malady.
The disease is described variously as
parasitic or fungous. 1t resembles both
in the symptoms, but the origin is
parasite and the probable cause the
enervating effects of life in confne-
ment. Overcrowding is not the seat of
the trouble, nor overlooking, for the
plague GAS developed in ponds sparsely
stocked and when care has been taken
to keep down the food supply. Inbreed-
ing at the hatcheries may have some-
thing to do with the initial planting of
the germ, which may not develop until
a long while after and not until the
tingerlings have become yearlings, or
even big fish, at the ponds of the club
to buy the young stock from the
breeder. This is one theory, another is
that the feeding at regular times and
the want of the exertion that keeps
the wild trout on the hustle is tn crea-
ting cause of the parasite. The energy
that would be exhausted in seeking
livelihood, on this theory, makes the
trout too full blooded, as it were, just
as high living and short exercise brings
govt to a gourmand.
One clubman is quite sure that to