The weekly chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Craig County, Okla.) 1905-1913, 1912-05-03
GAME FISH
FOR MINNESOTA
Puts ase,57a,7oo Fish in Minnesota
Lakes.

St. Paul, Mimi, April 2s.-one hun
dred million wall-eyed pike and four
million brook trout will be distributed
throughout the lakes and streams of
Minnesota this year to provide amuse-
ment for sportsmen. The last of the
trout are just leaving the hatcheries
and crews of men are in the great
north woods gathering pike spawn to
be hurried to the Matching tanks.
Within 60 days the distribution will
be finished and a record established
of S96,573,7O0 small fish or fry" as
commonly called, liberated in free
waters within seven years. This rec
ord probably is unequaled.
In addition to the pike and trout.
possibly a half-million bass will be
planted this fall, when the season for
gathering arrives.
When the hot days come, when the
asphalt begins to soften, the streets
to bake and steam in the wake of the
water wagon, and Office men dream of
lakes surrounded by pine trees and
spruce and tamarack, it is expected
the rush to the famous fishing haunts
OF the Gopher state will begin. There
are 10000 lakes in Minnesota, in some
of which no white man has ever cast
a line. Practically all of them TEEN
with bass, pike, crappie, trout and
muskallonge. In the northern part of
the state, especially in districts where
no numbering has been done, are vir-
gin lakes unequaled in all the world
for game fishing,
Planting approximately 400 000, 900
fish fry, propagating them and caring
for big game. has cost Minnesota $685.
2S2.64 during the past ten years. In
cluded in this sum, is the cost of nine
tons of beef liver. the dinner de luxe
of the wiggler just learning to swim.
At the hatcheries, liver is ground to a
pulp and fed at the rate of 200 pounds
a week. A minnow takes to liver pulp
like kitten to milk.
Hatching young fish from spawn
and mothering them till they are large
enough to forage for themselves, is
technical work Trout spawn are OBJ
tanned from shallow waters where the
mother trout has gouged out hole in
the sand and gravel and deposited her
eggs. The hole is carefully covered
and the spawn left to be hatched by
ltepid waters and warmth from the
earth. The female trout will deposit
from 1000 to 1 500 eggs or spawn in a
season. Gathered and taken to the
|hatcheryfi they will hatch in so days
with water at temperature of 4S de-
grees. For each degree the water is
colder, five days more is needed.
Thirty days after they begin to move
about beef liver is fed and the long
tanks, filled with running water, show
signs of activity. When the trout
get to be an inch and a half in length,
they are ready for transplanting to
open waters, and are called finger
lings.' In two years they grow to be
smallsized fish, large eought to eat,
and in three years, they become full
grown
The wall-eyed pike-which resemble
bass and are just as palatable, are the
|cannibals of fishdom. When the pike
fry get to be large enough to move
about with ease, civil war begins and
the rate of determination is measured
only by the gluttonous appetites of
the combatants When a young pike
becomes hungry, he turns to his near
est companion and proceeds to eat
him, taking a bite out of whichever
part he first touches Activity of men
in charge of the Matching tanks does
not stop them, and the only way to
preserve the fry intact, is to move
them to open waters where there is
opportunity for escape or free-and-
easy room for an uninterrupted fight
The female pike is the greatest pro.
ducer of eggs or spawn of any game
fish in America. Large pike have
been taken from Minnesota streams
and lakes which produced one quart
of eggs. In this quart, there are ap-
proximately 100000 spawn Crews
sent out from the state fish hatcheries
catch the pike and strip the eggs from
them Left undisturbed in their ma
tive streams, the mother pike deposits
her eggs nearly in the current, and
allows them to drift and lodge where
they will. In the Matching tanks at
a temperature of 4S degrees, the eggs
hatch in 1S to 20 days. and by the time