The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1922-09-25
EXPERIMENTS UNSUCCESSFUL.
Continued from Page One)

from a pail Of live bait dumped in the
pond by some careless fisherman. Suck
CrS inhabit the waters of about all ponds,
more or less. but since the trout and sal
mon have had Nlenty of Snclt to eat the
suckers have increased rapidly in South
pnnd. aDd as the cate at the outlet has
bean closed during the spring season
when they naturally seek 4 brook to
spawn in. tie pond has received the full
benefit OF their unchecked reproductions
Since the horned pout have practically
disappeared from the pond there has
been little night fishing with worms
there. consequently cells have not been
caught as much as formerly, and the
pond has become so thickly populated by
them that at present a good number are
taken by trout fisherman there III the
DAYTIME.
In the opinion of some. the cells ana
suckers are now 50 plentiful that no
trout spawn has hatched for several
years past. being either eaten by these
pests. or the spawning beds of the trout
being so fOuled and destroyed that the
eggs do not develop into fish, conse-
quently the only trout there are few
adults that have been there for some
time
The pond has been stocked almost
every year with trout, but until 1920
the stocking was done with fry, which
were so small when planted that even
a pond sinner would devour them. In
the fall of 1920 several thousand large
lingering trout were put in this pond
by the Windham County Fish and Game
club. and as many more in the fall OF
1921. all nice trout, properly planted,
but no one has seen hide nor halr OF
any of them since they were liberated
along the shores.
This pond has an area OF about ~
acres, and is over 40 feet deep in places,
b,tt,,,, boiDu vary iTTp0uI9F gen
eral the beaches are quite narrow, drop
ming abruptly to water of considerable
dppth. There are several sandbars and
large island" so-called, which comes
rather close to the surface when the pond
is drawn down in the summer.
The public in general takes considera-
BILE interest in this pond, it being APP
parently such an ideal place for trout
and the turnout to help conduct the first
experiment authorized by State Fish and
Game Commissioner II. =. Sheldon, ut
the request of Prof. y. w. Peach of Nor
witch university and County Warden +.
ii. Metcalf, was sure proof of their IN
terpst, Commissioner Sheldon sent Il net
here from the ROXbury hatchery, and 1t
was used according to his instructions
but the result was nil. The net could not
be operated successfully in deep water,
and a thorough investigation of the wa
tcrs along the shore failed to reveal any
fish even the pond sinners having gone
into the depths Some of the spectators
seemed to be much disappointed when the
net brought nothing in, but those more
familiar with existing conditions were
not very much surprised. a multitude of
suggestions have been made by interested
people, but only Il few of them seem to
be practical.
The commissioner wished to ascertain,
first of an whether or not there were
any trout or salmon in the pond at pres
emit, the catch during the past few sea-
sons not being considered conclusive evil
dence The experiment with the net
seems not to have added much to the
knowledge of conditions already possessed
By several who have made something of
study of this pond. Wholesale poisoning
of everything and starting anew Is one
suggestion but in the first place ii would
be some expensive job to poison this body
of water and if it were poisoned ii seems
probable that the poisoning OF all the hSh
in the outlet brook and Green river below
its junction Herewith would result,
which would be destroying more trout
than the pond has yielded in many years,
Some say blow it up with dynamite
IF this were done a multitude of charges
sunk close together would have to be ex-
ploded simultaneously in order to kill
all the fish in the pond. and that would
be some undertaking. Also, who would
bear the expense? 4 few charges of dyna-
mite exploded in the deeper parts of the
pond probably would determine whether
or not there are any trout there, but this
could also be determined equally as well
BY statiOning an observer at the pond
for few weeks about the time the trout
would be on the spawning beds. 1t might