Arizona republican., 1922-05-30
HOW To RAISE TROUT.
IS EXPLAINED BY THE.
STATE GAME WARDEN
BY Joe v. Proc haska


Trout are extremely hard to raise.
despite the general opinion of the
public that all you need is some sort
of an excavation with a screen at
each end, and with some kind OF
water running through. According to
the popular line of thought you next
place several thousand fish of vari-
Gus sizes in a pond, feed them every
week or so: then at the end of few
months take the fish out and trans
plant them into streams for the
anglers to catch. Thus think those
that do not know the facts.
If this were the actual method, the
life of the trout raiser would be
IDEAL but unfortunately this concep-
tion is decidedly wrong. Many of the
fish die before they are Matched from
the egg; large percentage are lost
while the fish are still fry (from II
to 11z inches in lengthy, and many
more perish before they become large
enough or of legal size q inches in
lengthy to catch.
Trout die from many causes;
sometimes thA'e is not sufficient
water for the number of fish in the
pond: sometimes 1t is overfeeding,
hot weather. or some kind of an acci-
dent, such as screen going out or
the water being shut off. One of
the big disadvantages in the fish
game is that you can only guess at
the cause, as fish do not have a fever
or sore throat. So far no one has
taken out a license as an F. ID. (doc-
tor of fish, although person who
could prove his ability along this line
could undoubtedly make an excellent
income.
Raising fish, although difficult, is
extremely interesting work. The
spawning takes place between the
latter part of December and the mid
die of March. In artificial Matching
the spawners (fish under, 10 inches
or larger) are seined up to one end
of the pond, then several are dipped
and placed in a tub that is half filled
with water. The female fish are
stripped of their eggs by running the
hand down the belly Of the fish. The
eggs are forced out upon a chamois
skin in a small pan, then are fertil-
iZed by the milk from the male.
The eggs are then taken to the
hatchery building which contains a
number of troughs with fresh water
running through. The eggs are
placed on trays a foot square or lar
ger and holding from 5000 to 5000
eggs. In most of the hatcheries 1t
takes about three weeks for the eggs
to hatch, although the hatcheries
that have colder water take longer.
During the period In the hatchery the
dead eggs are taken out daily. as a
dead egg in tray is just about the
same as rotten apple in barrel of
good ones. The dead egg becomes
| fuzzy" and sticks to several live
eggs, and soon kills the whole bunch.
ia 3 toIx h
as they turn white, while the live
eggs are light yellow.
| When the fish matches Cor does
| the egg hatch?) the biggest part of
| the egg stays attached to the stom-
| ach of the fish and furnishes food
| for several days. When this egg bag
| disappears the fish is generally fed
fine ground meat or sometimes mush
made from bran.
A few weeks after Matching, the
fish are placed in the ponds. A pond
80 feet long and 10 feet wide and
carrying from two to three feet of
water will easily take care of $4,000
fry. AS the fish become larger it is
| necessary to sort out and scatter
them throughout several ponds. Fish
grow from one-half to one inch a
| month, and sometimes more, depend
ing on care ana IOOu. DuTlIg THIS
time the fish are fed once or twice
day The chief food is ground liver,
meat, mush and sometimes patented
food.
An important detail Is to keep the
ponds clean as nothing will kill the
fish quicker than dirty ponds. The
| fish are sorted occasionally so that
there will not be a number of large
fish in with the small ones. because
fish enjoys a trout dinner just as
| much as anyone else, although his
dinner may be alive and unseasoned
when he eats it.