This is quite an extensive family, embracing the salmons, trouts, and whitefishes, and is characterized principally by an adipose fin and small, smooth scales. It is my province to consider only the Rocky Mountain whitefish and the cisco, as the salmons and trouts are described in another volume of this series. There are a number of whitefishes, but none of them can be considered game-fishes except the one about to be described, as they rarely or never take the fly or bait.
Coregonus williamsoni. Rocky Mountain Whitefish. Head 4-1/2 to 5; depth 4 to 5; eye 4-2/3; D. 11 to 14; A. 11 to 13; scales 8 to 10-83 to 87-7 to 10; body oblong, little compressed; head short, conic, the profile rather abruptly decurved; snout compressed and somewhat pointed at tip, which is below the level of the eye; preorbital broad, 2/3 the width of the eye; maxillary short and very broad, reaching to the anterior margin of eye, and is contained 4 times in length of head; mandible 3 times; gill-rakers short and thick, 9 + 15; pectoral fin 1-1/5 in head; ventral 1-2/5; adipose fin large, extending behind the anal fin.
Coregonus williamsoni cis-montanus. Montana Whitefish. Head 5; depth 5 to 5^1; pectoral fin 1^1 in head; ventral 1-4/5; scales 90. Otherwise like the typical form.
Argyrosomus artedi sisco. Cisco. Head 4 to 5; depth 4 to 4-1/2; eye 4 to 5; D. 10; A. 12; scales 8-65 to 80-8; body long, slender and somewhat compressed; head long, pointed and compressed; mouth large, lower jaw somewhat projecting, maxillary reaching to pupil; mandible 2-1/3 in head; dorsal fin high, its rays rapidly shortened; caudal fin forked.
THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN WHITEFISH
(Coregonus williamsoni)
This fine fish was first described from the Des Chutes River in Oregon by Dr. Charles Girard in 1856, who described most of the fishes collected during the Pacific Railroad Survey, and named the one under consideration in honor of Lieutenant R. S. Williamson, who had charge of one of the divisions of the Survey.
Its general form is not unlike that of the grayling, which has led to the absurd opinion, held by some, that the grayling is a hybrid, or cross, between this whitefish and the red-throat trout, its body being rather long, nearly elliptical in outline, and somewhat compressed. It is found in the clear streams on both slopes of the Rocky Mountains, and on both sides of the Cascade Range. In the tributaries of the Missouri River in Montana it differs slightly from the typical form, and is known as the variety cis-montanus. It is bluish or greenish on the back, sides silvery, belly white. All of the fins are tipped with black; caudal and adipose fins are steel-blue.
I know this fish only from the streams of Montana, where it coexists with the red-throat trout and grayling. It spawns in the fall. It feeds on insects and their larvÆ, small crustaceans, and the eggs of other fishes. It grows to about a foot in length, usually, and to a pound in weight, though I have taken much larger specimens. It is a very fair food-fish,—as good, I think, as the red-throat trout, as its flesh is firmer and flaky, and devoid of any muddy or musky flavor.
It rises to the artificial fly as readily as the trout or grayling, and to the same flies, though a little more partial to small, dark, or grayish ones, as black, brown, and gray hackles, black gnat, oriole, gray drake, etc. When the streams are higher and not so clear, lighter-colored flies are useful, as professor, coachman, Henshall, miller, etc. Light trout fly-rods and tackle are used both for fly and bait-fishing by Rocky Mountain anglers,—the bait, when used, being the larva of the caddis-fly, and known as "rockworm." Grasshoppers are employed in the late summer and fall. Fly-fishing, however, is the most successful method.
Large baskets of whitefish are made in the three forks of the Missouri River, especially in the lower Gallatin River, where it is taken with the grayling, the red-throat trout not being so plentiful in that part of the stream. The tributaries of this river are also well supplied with whitefish. Bridger Creek, one of the tributaries of East Gallatin River, has some large whitefish. I have taken them in that stream up to two pounds; for gameness they were equal to trout of the same weight, and just as good for the table. They are at their best in the early fall months, before spawning, when they are fat and in fine fettle. At this season they must be looked for in deep holes, especially in August and September, when they are gregarious, and one's basket may be filled from a single hole when of considerable extent. Later they depart for the shallows and pair off for spawning, when they seldom rise to the fly.
There is a sentiment among trout fishers, and among people generally in a trout region, that no other fish is quite so good to eat, or possessed of as much gameness, as the trout. While I concede beauty of form and coloration to the trout, far excelling all other fresh-water fishes, there are others equally as good for the table, or even better. When camping by mountain streams, freshly-caught trout, fried to crispness in bacon fat, has a happy combined trout-bacon flavor that is certainly delicious, especially when one has the sauce of a camping appetite to favor it; but under similar conditions the mountain whitefish, in my opinion, is fully as good. Nine out of ten persons who are prejudiced in favor of the trout will declare that it has no scales, thus showing a lack of comparison and observation. In the Rocky Mountain region, where there are so few species of fish for the angler, usually only trout, grayling, and whitefish, the latter should be better appreciated.
THE CISCO
(Argyrosomus artedi sisco)
The cisco, or so-called "lake-herring," was first described by the French ichthyologist, Le Sueur, in 1818, from Lake Erie and the Niagara River. He named it in honor of Petrus Artedi, the associate of LinnÆus, and the "Father of Ichthyology." The variety sisco was described and named by Dr. David Starr Jordan, in 1875, from Lake Tippecanoe, Indiana. It was for a long time supposed to exist only in Lake Geneva. Wisconsin, except in the Great Lakes, and an absurd opinion was prevalent that there was an underground communication between that lake and Lake Superior by which the cisco entered it. Soon after Dr. Jordan had discovered it in Tippecanoe Lake I found it in several lakes in Wisconsin, as La Belle, Oconomowoc, and Okauchee. The cisco is somewhat smaller than the lake-herring, but otherwise it is about the same. It is almost elliptical in outline, the body being compressed. The mouth is rather large, with the jaws more projecting than in the lake whitefishes. The coloration is bluish or greenish on the back, with silvery sides and white belly. The scales are sprinkled with black specks. It is a very pretty fish, is gregarious, swimming in large schools, and feeds on the minute organisms found in lakes of good depth. It remains in deep water most of the year, but resorts to shallower water in the summer, preparatory to spawning. From the last of May to June, when the May-fly appears in vast swarms on the western lakes, the cisco approaches the surface to feed on them. It is at this time that they take an artificial fly of a grayish hue. It grows to a length of ten or twelve inches, and is highly esteemed as a food-fish.
At Lake Geneva, when the May-fly appears, crowds of anglers assemble to cast the artificial fly and the natural "cisco-fly," as the May-fly is called. A very light trout fly-rod with corresponding tackle can be utilized for cisco, with gray hackle, gray drake, or green drake, on hooks Nos. 8 to 10. The fishing is done from boats or the shore. In using the natural fly the same sized hooks mentioned will answer. As the May-fly alights on every object, the boat and clothing of the angler as well, the supply of bait is constant and convenient.
The cisco can be caught in winter, through the ice, in water from fifty to seventy-five feet deep, and many are taken in this way from the lakes near Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. A small white or bright object is used as a decoy to attract the fish, which is kept in motion near the baited hook, and on a separate line. The bait may be a very small bit of white bacon or ham fat, or fish flesh, though insect larva is better.
When the talismanic words, "The cisco is running," are pronounced, crowds of anglers from Chicago, Milwaukee, and all intermediate points, with a unanimity of purpose, rush as one man to the common centre of Lake Geneva, in eager anticipation of the brief but happy season of "ciscoing." Anglers of every degree—armed with implements of every description, from the artistic split-bamboo rod of four ounces to the plebeian cane pole or bucolic sapling of slender proportions, and with lines of enamelled silk, linen, or wrapping cord—vie with one another in good-natured rivalry in the capture of the silvery cisco. Very little skill is required to fill the creel, as the schools are on the surface of the water in myriads, and the most bungling cast may hook a fish. Though the etymology of the cisco is unknown, it is a veritable entity, whose name is legion during the month of June at Lake Geneva.
The cisco is a localized variety of the so-called lake-herring of the Great Lakes, and holds the same relation to it that the landlocked salmon does to the Atlantic salmon. Being confined to small lakes, the cisco does not grow so large as the lake herring. Before the Chicago and Milwaukee railway was built, in Wisconsin, there was a plank road extending from Milwaukee to Watertown, and thirty miles west of Milwaukee this road crossed the outlet of Oconomowoc Lake. Within fifty yards or so of the bridge there stood a roadside tavern where the freight wagons stopped at noon on their way from Lake Michigan to Watertown. I have been informed by old residents of that section that in the fall of the year, about the spawning period of the cisco, boxes of fresh fish were frequently carried by these wagons, some of which were cleaned and dressed for dinner on the bank of the outlet of the lake, and the offal thrown into the stream. It is not unlikely, inasmuch as the fish were so recently caught, that the eggs and milt of the cisco thus became commingled, fertilizing the eggs, which were subsequently hatched. This opinion is supported by the fact that the cisco is found in that locality only in the chain of lakes composed of Oconomowoc, Okauchee, and La Belle lakes, all of which are connected by Oconomowoc River. It is possible that Lake Geneva was stocked in a similar manner from Racine or Kenosha. If it is objected that eggs from dead fish would not be fertilized, there is still a tenable theory: When the fish are taken from the nets alive, many of them are so ripe that the eggs and milt ooze from them. Under these circumstances some of the eggs would become fertilized without a doubt, and by adhering to the fish when placed in the boxes for transportation, they might be carried to the place mentioned, and there deposited in the stream in the manner related.
