THE AMERICAN ANGLER. VOL. 22. OCTOBER, 1892. No. I A VISIT TO THE MAMMOTH LAKES, CAL. Nature, matchless as she is in her fairy-like handiwork, has, nevertheless, left many finishing touches to be added by the industry of man. A case in point, which comes within the province of your strictly piscatorial columns, is that of the Owen's River system. This stream has its beginning in some small creeks that start from the Sierras in the neighborhood of Mono Lake, in Mono County, Cal., and form a river which, after meandering in a southerly direction along the fifteen or twenty miles' length of Long Valley, pierces the range that heads Owen's Valley in Inyo County, and being continually augmented by streams shedding from the Sierras, parallel with which, on the eastern side, it holds its course, sweeps along through that valley, a river of no mean proportions, until it finds its bourne in Owen's Lake; this latter, as is the case with Mono Lake, containing peculiarly strong waters, the component parts of which, as set forth in the local press, convey to the glancing eye the idea of some formidable medical prescription. In no part of this somewhat extensive system were any of the finny family found indigenous; this was also the case with Rush, Lee, Vining and Mill creeks, which a few miles farther to the north empty into Mono Lake, after leaving the numerous and magnificent mountain lakes which now yield annually an enormous harvest to "the multitude of the spearmen." It is not until we come to Virginia Creek, which flows down from Castle Peak and is the southern most tributary of the Walker River, that we find the scaly tribe aboriginal. The settlers of Owen's Valley many years ago stocked their waters with trout, carp and catfish, which have thriven amazingly, the former in the mountain streams, and the two latter in the main river, the southern portion of which seems to be too highly impregnated with alkali to admit of the propagation of the salmon species, but this is not the case with the Long Valley or upper part of the stream, into which, among others, flows the creek from the Mammoth Lakes, of which more particularly I wish now to write; for, years ago, Thompson, erstwhile a miner, but now a prosperous cattle owner, who resides at the head of the valley, stocked the stream with trout, and that, too, in the most unselfish manner; for, although hailing from the bonnie land which gave birth to Scott and to the noble author of that very charming work, "The Moor and the Lock," he is, strange to say, in matters of the angle a veritable Gallio; and his fish have thriven and spread down the length of the valley. Their career, however, has not been an uncheckered one, for Thompson poured into my sympathetic ears the story of how once, when he returned home from a temporary absence, he found his trout almost exterminated, while in his cabin were inadvertently left sundry odds and ends of dynamite, and along the banks were washed up pieces of fuse. Thompson little thought that, through the medium of your columns, he |