NATIVE TROUT OF NORTH AMERICA.

1984 1st edition paperback issue. Landscape 4to paperback (215 x 279mm). Pp144. Colour photograph plates of trout, b/w line illustrations by Howard G. Hughes.

"The native trout of the continental United States exist today largely as isolated, remnant populations in tiny rivulets beyond the reach of hatchery trucks. Except for Alaska, current fish populations in most primary trout streams are a mixture of exotics and exotic/native hybrids that out-compete and ultimately replace the original, genetically pure endemic strains. To meet the insatiable public demand for more fish in the creel, state fish and game departments feel pressured to continue the policy of stocking trout waters with hatchery-produced trout of questionable lineage, many of 'catchable' size. In ...California, for example, in 1979 the Department of Fish and Game planted a total of 12,302,838 catchable trout. ...These essays constitute [the author's] revolt". The author tours some of the remaining strongholds of native strains of trout and reports back on his adventures. Chapters include: Geology and the trout; Beginnings; Evolution of an angler; Coastal Cutthroats; Westslope and Mountain Cutthroats; Yellowstone and Fine-Spotted Snake River Cutthroats; Native trout of the Lahontan Basin; Trout of the Boneeville Basin; Native trout of the Alvord Basin; Native Trout of the Central and Southern Rocky Mountains; Rio Grande Cutthroats - 1 and 2; Redband Trout; Golden Trout of the High Sierras; Native trout of the Lower Colorado system; Rainbow Trout - 1, 2, and 3; Trout of the Sierra Madre Occidental; Atlantic Salmon; Lake Trout; Arctic Charr; Dolly Varden Charr and the Bull Trout; Eastern Brook Trout; Mending the cast.