1894 fishing — Fishing trip to Paradox

Was it a coincidence or nature’s design?

“S.P. White and Edward Richards, two New York gentlemen, guests of the Ondawa (at Schroon Lake), on Saturday last visited Paradox on a fishing trip, with good results, taking each a trout,” The Morning Star reported on Aug. 7, 1894. “The most singular thing about it was that the trout must have been twins, as each weighed sixteen pounds and one ounce.”

Elsewhere in the area, Mr. McGinley, clerk at the Windsor House hotel, caught a 13-pound pickerel at the head of Schroon Lake on Aug. 1.

In other 1894 fishing news collected from historic newspapers of the region:

• “A magnificent salmon weighing twenty-one pounds was caught in the Hudson River opposite the paper mill of John Manning,” The Morning Star reported on May 29. “A number of Mr. Manning’s friend in Saratoga sampled the steaks and pronounced them the best they ever tasted,” The Morning Star reported on May 29.
• “C.H. Hitchcock yesterday received as a present from two friends up north — two large brook trout, one of which weighed two pounds and the other a pound and a-half. They were beauties,” The Morning Star reported on May 30.
• “George W. Hill went over in the town of Moreau after brook trout yesterday afternoon. He caught seven nice fish, one of which weighed a pound an a-quarter,” The Morning Star reported on May 30.
• “John C. Langdon returned yesterday from Lake George with sixty pounds of pickerel as a result of one-day’s fishing,” The Morning Star reported on June 28.
• “Harry Peck, Walter Leavens and Louis Armstrong went to Aiden Lair last Saturday on a fishing trip. They returned home last evening, bringing with them thirty-five pounds of brook trout,” The Morning Star reported on June 28. “Walter Leavens killed the largest trout that weighed a pound and three-quarters. Honors were even on the mosquitobites, all of the boys being pretty well marked.”
• “As the result of three hours of fishing Saturday morning in the Oneida Pond, Albert N.C. Fowler and Harry M. Peck brought home a string of perch and a five-pound black bass caught by the latter,” The Morning Star reported on Aug. 14.
• “Judge VanBrandt of New York, who is stopping at Cecil’s Rock Hotel, caught six bass, one weighing six pounds, the largest of the season,” the Schroon Lake correspondent reported in The Morning Star on Sept. 8, 1894.
• “Smith Philley and J.R. Fish brough home about twenty-five pounds of perch, two pickerels, and a pike as a result of their trip to Lake Champlain, near Dresden,” The Morning Star reported on Oct. 4. “The fish took the bait ravenously and there was no difficulty in landing them in the boat almost as fast as they could prepare their hooks.”
• “John Hurd of Feeder Dam and a party of friends passed through Glens Falls yesterday on their way home from a few days’ fishing at South Bay, Lake Champlain,” The Morning Star reported on Nov. 3. “The party displayed a large catch, among which was a catfish weighing fifteen pounds, the largest caught in that section.”

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