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Historical accounts of upper basin endangered fish 10 the name, the Colorado white salmon was what it was." When asked if the identification surprised his sportsmen's club, Cook replied, "Well, no it didn't because nobody knew what it was, and it wasn't a trash fish you know. It was pretty good eating, it had, of course, meat. It was a pretty good fish." In a special Aug. 18, 1938, edition of the Vernal Express, the Uintah Basin Industrial Convention advertised the fishing opportunities in the Green River. "Few realize that inhabiting the deep pools of the quarter-mile wide Green River are fish of a different order - white fish - which reach the 25-pound mark and are worthy game for those deep-sea fishermen of the President Roosevelt brand, who think in terms of swordfish and tuna. "Ask 8-year-old Max Stewart, who caught a 25-pound white fish last year directly east of Dinosaur National Monument on the Green River, where the world's best fishing is located. He'll tell you of the sport connected with landing a fighting white fish or a chan- nel catfish or a humpy, or carp, for all these are to be hooked by the skillful fisherman along the Green River." Colorado squawfish bait - vast and varied Further testimony of the Colorado squawfish's aggressiveness and sporting character is manifested by the bait the fish would take. To catch Colorado squawfish, anglers reported using frogs, swallows, rabbits, mice, liver, chicken parts, grub worms, earthworms, hellgrammites, sculpins, and parts of fish, including razorback suckers, bony tail chubs and carp. Upper basin anglers were opportunists when it came to choosing Colorado squawfish bait. Katharine Rinker (Lily Park, Colo.) responded to a question about what she'd use for bait when fishing in the Little Snake River in the 1920s and 1930s: "Whatever we had. Worms or mice or liver or whatever we had at the time ... grasshoppers." Other upper basin anglers also reported using whatever they had, however some were much more particular about choosing their bait. "The best bait you could get for them was if you could find a mice nest and get these little mice when they was pink and put them on a little board or some- thing so they could float, and let them float on out there," said Kenneth Bailey (Hayden, Colo.). "You'd get them out there in the river quite a ways and pull them off that board, and they wouldn't hit the water good until one of them fish would take it." Bailey wasn't the only one who knew about the Colorado squawfishes' penchant for a floating mouse. Retired Utah game warden Steve Radosevich (Browns Park, Utah) recalled a story about his brother-in-law catching a 23- pound Colorado squawfish with a mouse. "I heard stories about that, he went fishing with a mouse," Radosevich said. "Mouse was on the hook when he put it on the board, shoved it out in the river, was trolling back with it when the big fish got it." Ted Cook (Green River, Wyo.) was also particular about his Colorado squawfish bait. He fondly recalls searching for large grubs to use for bait: "We had a sand grub here we used a lot in fishing. In the spring of the year when it starts to warm up, when it starts to show a little heat on the sand from the sun,