19th century fishing — ‘Pancakes with gusto’

Nothing like a good breakfast.

“The fishing party returned from their camps at Dead Waters with some 300 fish as trophies of their success,” the Moriah correspondent reported in The Morning Star on Aug. 10, 1877. “Willie Heshey can tell some fearful tales of night raids on the camps by four-legged beasts. All the party did justice to Will Seward’s omelets and coffee and swallowed the pancakes with gusto.”

In other 19th century fishing news collected from historic newspapers of the region:

• “The bullhead fishing about Ripley’s Point (at Lake George) has been unusually good this year. The record of those cooked at the Ripley Cottage for the month of August is 784,” The Morning Star of Glens Falls reported on Sept. 3, 1890.
• “A Saratoga man caught an eighteen-pound catfish in Lake Champlain,” The Morning Star reported on Sept. 23, 1890.
• “Saturday, Gilson Mason caught a pickerel in front of his cottage at Lake George which weighed 18 pounds and measured 40 ¾ inches in length,” The Commercial Advertiser of Sandy Hill, now Hudson Falls, reported on July 20, 1881.
• “Wesley Finkle and Thomas Austin caught a pickerel yesterday which weighed fifteen and three-fourths pounds and was thirty-nine inches in length and eighteen in circumference. It was caught trolling,” The Morning Star reported on Oct. 7, 1890. “R.S. Coleman of Sandy Hill and a Lake George gentleman recently caught four pickerel whose combined weight was fifty-one pounds.”
• “Dr. Eggleston caught at Dunham’s Bay, Lake George, the other day a yellow perch weighing one pound and three-quarters. This is the largest perch ever taken from Lake George,” — The Morning Star reported on Sept. 2, 1893.
• “W.E. Ross of Elizabeth N.J., a guest at The Marion House (at Lake George) caught fourteen black bass recently that weighed thirty pounds. The largest fish weighed four-and-one-half pounds,” The Morning Star reported on Aug. 19, 1893.

There were still fish left in the lake.

“Tuesday of this week he caught eight pickerel weighing thirty-two pounds. The largest weighed eight pounds. These are the two best catches of fish made at the hotel this season.”

• “A seventeen-pound pickerel and two of lesser weight were pulled out of Lake George on Monday by a Bolton fisherman,” The Commercial Advertiser of Sandy Hill, now Hudson Falls, reported on Aug. 24, 1881.
• “Norman Brown caught the largest perch on record Sunday in Cedar Landing Bay, and not being satisfied with that he drew out and eight-pound pickerel through the ice while fishing for perch,” The Morning Star reported on Jan. 12, 1894.
• “Fishing (on Lake George) is good,” the Ticonderoga Sentinel reported on June 9, 1876. “Howard is the best fisherman on the lake. Monday morning of last week he caught a trout which weighed 15 lbs., the largest, it is said, that has been caught for several years.”
• “Justice Ranger is the happiest angler in these parts, and as well may he be, for he has the honor of capturing the largest lake trout of any resident of Glen’s Falls. The scene was midway from Ranger’s Island , Lake George, and Pearl Point, and the time Tuesday afternoon; the method trolling,” The Glen’s Falls Messenger reported on May 27, 1891. “His fish-ship measured two feet nine inches in length and weighed fifteen pounds, and was one of the handsomest trout ever seen. The beauty was presented to Mr. Rockwell at The Rockwell House (hotel in Glens Falls).”
• “Harris, of the ‘Owl,’ recently caught a six-pound bass, the best of the season,” the Lake George correspondent reported in the Ticonderoga Sentinel on Aug. 4, 1876.
• “Perch fishing is quite good on account of the deep snow on the ice. The fishermen use snowshoes to get on the fishing grounds,” the East Lake George correspondent reported in The Morning Star on March 21, 1887.

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