Valerie Barrows, age 11, of Foremost, Alberta Canada for her question:

What is the life story of the trout fish?

The twenty or so different trouts are very handsome, meaty fishes. When you try to catch one for the first time, you soon learn that the big ones are smart enough to dodge your hook. And, when they chance to get caught, some are strong enough to break free. Of course, it's not fair to take the little fellows. And the biggies have spent several years learning to keep out of trouble.

Sometimes mankind changes their life stories. But when left to themselves, the various trout fishes return to breed in the very place where they hatched. Usually this is a gently flowing stream of clean, clear water. For neither the trouts nor their eggs can survive where the water is murky or polluted.

The males are ready to breed at the age of two, the females are a year older. Then, year after year they return to their ancestoral home ground. The female selects a site and swishes her strong tail to dig a hollow, which is called a redd. There she lays her batch of eggs, which may be 150 to 18,000. Then the male swims over the eggs and fertilizes them.

The breeding season is early spring and sometimes also in the fall. The spring brood hatches in about three weeks, the fall brood may wait 200 days. The hatchings are called fry, or alevins. They are a half an inch to one inch long and all have huge, bulging tummies. Actually the bulges are egg sacs which nourish the fry for a month or so.

Then the famished little fishes leave their nest and feed on scraps of floating plankton. They learn to catch mosquito larva and other aquatic insects. Soon they become pretty little speckled fishes called fingerlings. But life is very hazardous. During their first three months, about 94 percent of them are devoured by otters, herons and larger fishes    which may be adult trout.

Through his first summer, a famished fingerling grows two and a half inches or more. Meantime he ventures farther down stream toward the deeper, wider waters of a river or maybe a lake. If he happens to be a sea trout, he sets out toward a voyage through the ocean. Next summer, our young trout will grow five inches and the following year perhaps eight inches or more.

Meantime most of the original brood has become food for other creatures. And our lucky survivor has become very wise about dodging his enemies    including small fishermen. He now gulps larger portions, such as shrimps and small fishes    and now and then he leaps up to catch a flying insect. Come winter, a trout stops feeding and rests for a while.

There are brown trout and golden trout, brook trout and lake trout and rainbow trout. All of them are colored to blend with their favorite surroundings. Most are speckled and freckled to match a clean, clear stream as it flows among shady weeds and over smooth pebbles. Some have flecks of red or gold to match the glint of sunbeams, dancing through sparkling clear water.