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<br />taken at Twin lakes by personnel of the Leadville hatchery (rainbow trout <br />eggs were also taken in 1897). Local opposition to the removal of spawn from <br />Twin Lakes caused the cessation of egg taking at Twin Lakes after 1897 and new <br />sources of cutthroat trout eggs were sought. In 1899 egg taking commenced in <br />the Grand Mesa Lakes and these lakes became the major source of cutthroat <br />trout eggs handled at the Leadville hatchery for the next several years. It <br />becomes evident, from the later literature, that there was a belief that one <br />of the Grand Mesa lakes used for egg taking contained "yellowfin" trout, and <br />this led to the supposition that "yellowfin" trout introduced into Europe <br />persisted after their extinction in Twin Lakes. We could find no factual <br />basis that yellowfin trout from Twin Lakes were ever stocked on the Grand <br />Mesa, or anywhere else. All of the records indicate they were only stocked <br />back into Twin Lakes. <br />The 1905 U.S. Fish Commissioner's Report lists "yellowfin trout, Salmo <br />macdonaldi" as one of the species propagated in 1905 in federal hatcheries. <br />The Leadville hatchery report for 1905, however, lists only "blackspotted <br />trout" derived from the Grand Mesa lakes as being reared. Evidently, some of <br />the "blackspotted" trout from Grand Mesa were considered as "yellowfin" <br />trout. In the 1929 Report of the U.S. Fish Commissioner, it is mentioned <br />that the U.S. Forest Service was then involved in fish culture on the Grand <br />Mesa Lakes and they had taken 3 million eggs of rainbow, blackspotted, and <br />yellowfin trouts in addition to 1 million brook trout eggs. <br />"Grand Mesa Lakes" is an ill defined geographic unit. There are <br />numerous lakes on the Grand Mesa but the group of interconnecting lakes <br />modified as part of an irrigation project about 1890 appear to be the lakes <br />used for artificial propagation of trout--first as a private enterprise and <br /> <br />1;2) <br />