1894 fishing — Newsman goes fishing

A newsman went fishing, and he came back with a fish story.

“John J. Morgan of Fort Edward and C.H. Baxter of The Star went to East Lake George on Saturday armed with the necessary tools for capturing trout. They were guests of Landlord Donohue of the Trout Pavilion,” The Morning Star reported on May 14, 1894. “They caught eight trout, weighing twenty-one pounds. The largest tipped the scales at five-and-three quarter pounds.”

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

• “Two great catches of trout from Halfway Brook were reported on Saturday,” The Morning Star of Glens Falls reported on May 14. “Sylvester, son of Louis Palmer, Union Street, hooked a twelve-inch specimen of the salmon family, and Charles Parker caught twenty. … One of them was twelve and one-half inches long and weighed three-fourths of a pound.”
• Fishing was not just a sport for men.

“Mrs. Albert Johnson is one of the successful anglers of the season. She landed a trout in Lake George that weighed twelve pounds,” The Morning Star reported on May 11.

• “Hartwell Gill, Charles Brooks, John Gill and John Burns visited the fishing grounds at West Stony Creek last week and returned home Saturday with a fine catch of the speckled beauties,” the Stony Creek correspondent reported in The Morning Star on May 18.
• “Raymond, the thirteen-year-old son of Scott Gleason, has earned the title of champion brook trout fisherman for this season by catching one that weighed one pound and 11 ounces in Clendon Brook.”
• “The party of six who went to West Stony Creek fishing last week returned on Saturday, each having a fine basket of trout to display, and one caught by Frank Brown weighed four pounds and three ounces,” the Warrensburg correspondent reported in The Morning Star on May 26.
• “J.H. Madden, of The Globe Hotel, and E.F. Dean enjoyed a successful day’s fishing at Lake George on Saturday. They returned home in the early evening with thirty-eight pounds of trout, the largest of which weighed seven and one-half pounds,” The Morning Star reported on June 11.
• “Frank Briggs caught a sheep’s head just below the lower lock on the canal that weighed 13 pounds,” the Fort Ann correspondent reported in The Granville Sentinel on June 8, 1894. “This was the largest fish ever caught in these waters. It measured thirty inches in length.”
• Excellent bass and pickerel fishing is reported at Glen Lake,” The Morning Star reported on July 16, 1894. “Mel Bennett captured a bass there the other day that tipped the scales at exactly six pounds.”

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