The following was sent to Nelson Sigelman about his recent commentary in the Gazette.

“Salter” was a word I hadn’t run into until last weekend, when I read your column in the Gazette while on a long Mother’s Day weekend. (I was one of the non-mothers along to share the experience.)

I was familiar with brook trout, way back familiar, from times when I fished Wisconsin trout streams with my grandfather. Fifty-plus years ago, he introduced me to fly fishing for brookies. We fought our way through high grass and thick tag alders to get to his favorite fishing holes. On several occasions, we brought home enough brookies for my grandmother to make a meal for the three of us.

But the brook trout population started declining, from overfishing and from farming practices that degraded the cool, clear streams that brook trout needed to thrive. And the population was challenged further by the introduction of non-native trout species such as brown trout. Brook trout faced challenges that caused a precipitous drop in their numbers. My grandfather saw it coming. He started returning the brook trout to the stream, and then started fishing more abundant and less threatened species of fish in the lakes near us. As he put it: “The brookies need time to recover.”

One term I did become familiar with in Wisconsin was “coaster”, the brook trout that moved between Lake Superior and the lake’s tributaries, growing large during the time they spent in the big water before coming inland to spawn. (A biologist coined a name for fish that migrated between a lake and tributary streams — “potamodrimous.” Look at that word and try getting it to roll off the tongue and you will see why it never caught on.) Coasters became threatened too. Mostly by overfishing and obstruction of the tributary rivers and streams by hydroelectric dams. (Predation by their much larger relative, the lake trout, didn’t help either.) There are still coasters, but they are almost as uncommon as salters.

Thanks for educating me about a new fish term. And thanks for the memories.

Bill Thedinga

Eau Claire, Wisc. and Boston