Would you like to fish in 1897?

[Mike]

Agree, but the name of “salmon” instead of walleye to my knowledge from local lore and historical accounts of Delaware R basin fisheries did not appear east of the Susquehanna. That reference for a Delaware R basin walleye would have certainly caught my attention because while I grew up in the Delaware Basin, I primarily fished the Susquehanna and my mentors always referred to walleye from the Susquehanna as “Susquehanna Salmon.” I even have this sketchy recollection of some type of lure packs or snelled hook packs hanging in tackle shops when I was a kid that were supposed to be used for walleye, but packet referred them as “salmon,” Susky salmon, or something similar. If anyone has seen a reference to walleye in the Delaware basin being called salmon, I would be glad to know that. (Perhaps we should start a walleye thread. That might be a first here).😁

There were various attempts and pushes at various times to establish a larger Salmonid in the Delaware system, even as recently as the early 1980’s. Additionally, an occasional large Salmonid was caught in the lower non-tidal Dealware. One was brought and/or sent to a number of ichthyologists and other fisheries personnel, including me, in the early 1980’s and even those more specialized then me, including one in the mid-west, could not firmly identify the species because the meristics were all borderline, that is, overlapping between species. It was then that I learned from the specialists at that time how genetically/phenotypically plastic Salmonids really were, something that I had never heard in an Ichthyology class. That’s worthwhile remembering, as it comes in handy at times.

 

[silverfox]

What salmon do you reckon they were raising back then? Atlantic?

 

[troutbert]

SALMON IN THE DELAWARE RIVER; GRATIFYING RESULTS OF THE FISH COMMISSION'S WORK. Hundreds of Good-Sized Fish Caught in the Shad Nets Between Chester and the Delaware Water Gap. (Published 1895)

Delaware River Stocked by Pennsylvania Fish Commission

www.nytimes.com

 

[Mike]

What salmon do you reckon they were raising back then? Atlantic?

I did some quick search engine research and found a historical review of Atlantic Salmon in NY State, written by Dr Dwight Webster, a very renowned and respected fisheries scientist. Given his account in the first few paragraphs and his comments about the Hudson, the salmon in the 1871 Bucks Co, Pa hatchery that were acquired from NY State must have been wild Atlantic Salmon stock from the eastern Great Lakes Basin. I’m certainly getting an education in this thread.

 

[Prospector]

I fish a combination of special regs (40%) and open water (60%). When I’m in the open water I rarely see people keeping trout. I love to eat trout and my wife loves it more than I do. I think I kept 8-10 trout last year in June when the temps were rising in stocked streams. I really need to harvest a few more this year.

 

[KeviR]

The article says the salmon came from Canada.

 

[Mike]

Wow, I don’t know where I got NY out of that. Sorry about that. The source could have still been the Eastern Great Lakes region or a host of other more maritime waters.

 

[jifigz]

Any form of vernacular that calls walleye "salmon" is a new one to me. I studied English in college and dialects and local speech is fascinating to me. Local areas are slowly losing these things that make their speech and culture unique.

 

[foxfire]

Growing up in the ‘70’s and fishing the western basin of Lake Erie, I recall the old-timers refer to walleyes as salmon.

 

[PennKev]

Growing up in the ‘70’s and fishing the western basin of Lake Erie, I recall the old-timers refer to walleyes as salmon.

This reminds me of having read of smallmouth being called "green trout" or something to that effect. I also recall my grandfather mentioning old timers catching "trout" in the Shenango River in New Castle in the 1920's and 1930's, but I can't imagine there being actual trout there, or even many smallmouth at that time. He wasn't a fisherman so he couldn't say what they were for certain.

 

[krayfish2]

To answer your question, yes. Likely to be much less crowded than today. That would be nice. I do appreciate the author writing that the brook trout were small and not worthy of mention. Looks like things haven't changed much in the last 100+ years.

 

[Sylvaneous]

Some years ago, a friend found this newspaper clipping in the Solebury Historical Society archives.
I believe it's from the Doylestown Intelligencer - April 16 1897

View attachment 1641228781

And this article was specifically about upper Bucks county - the most rural part of the county. It sounds like the habitat was already lousy - probably from clear-cutting (and then farming) right up to the banks of the creeks.
Caution - old guy rant incoming -
To jump on a high horse, even with very few people and I very crude fishing hardware compared to what we have now, they still could completely decimate the trout population of all the creeks in the county. This should demonstrate very clearly that the only way we can have sport fishing for trout is by either 100% catch and release, (and in fairness, better land stewardship) or a highly artificial put-and-take hatchery based approach. When you step back and think about the whole hatchery scheme, it's absurd. I mean, why not open the hatchery and let people fish there? It would save a lot of fuel and labor versus spreading the fish around and letting herons, otters, raccoons, etc, etc. take their toll. Not to mention the ones that just die on the way or die soon after getting dumped in the creek.
And don't tell me you want a "natural" experience - it's extremely unnatural to catch a fish that was bred for captivity, raised on ocean forage fish meal and factory farm corn and raised in concrete raceways by the millions before being trucked to all corners. And then promptly caught with (plastic?) power-bait, corn, gelatin "salmon" eggs or who knows what else, because the fish don't know what natural food looks like. And the rodeo starts when the bell rings at 8AM Saturday morning and there is a race to see who can catch their limit and get home first. If you're looking for a natural experience, that doesn't sound like a good prototype.

By 1897, southeast PA had been farmed intensively for like 200 years. That would have done-in the trout streams.

 

[GANGGREEN]

I've read a lot of old hunter's/trapper's accounts of their sporting (or commercial) efforts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in PA and NY and there were a lot of mentions of "salmon" in the streams. I always rather thought that they were probably Brookies (bigger than what we expect or see now), but who knows.

Mostly unrelated, but I had P a funny incident last week while trout fishing. I was fishing with a buddy and we were both catching fair numbers of good-sized stocked trout. I got a really nice rainbow, 20 or 21" long and heavy and hollered, "Hey Ron, give me a second here and take a photo of this fish for me". My buddy didn't really want to be bothered and didn't want to take time away from his fishing and he responded, "Geez, the fish was living in a raceway two days ago, why do you want a photo?". Apparently taking 3 minutes out of his fishing time would have been an inconvenience for him even though they were raceway fish. Funny.

 

[JeffK]

The Delaware was stocked with Atlantic salmon in 1871 in an attempt spearheaded by Thaddeus Norris. A great source of early stocking efforts is contained in the US Fisheries Commission reports here. You can geek out for hours reading these.
https://library.noaa.gov/Collections/Digital-Documents/Fish-Comm-Annual-Rep

Lots of great information on crazy plans, like introducing king salmon to the lower Mississippi. The "only in PA" salmon reference is when an Atlantic salmon was shot with a rifle (after failing with a shotgun) in the Bushkill in Easton in Nov 1877 (see 1878 report page 940 - most Delaware R salmon stocking info is in NJ section starting at pg 938)

Looking at the 1897 report for the title year, US stockings in PA included shad, Quinnat (king) salmon, Atlantic salmon, LL salmon, rainbow trout, black bass, and rock bass. Always wondered why the feds needed to introduce rock bass to the Delaware drainage.

Earlier reports show trying to introduce huchen/Danube salmon in the Delaware as well as Atlantics and kings.

 

[silverfox]

The Delaware was stocked with Atlantic salmon in 1871 in an attempt spearheaded by Thaddeus Norris. A great source of early stocking efforts is contained in the US Fisheries Commission reports here. You can geek out for hours reading these.
https://library.noaa.gov/Collections/Digital-Documents/Fish-Comm-Annual-Rep

Lots of great information on crazy plans, like introducing king salmon to the lower Mississippi. The "only in PA" salmon reference is when an Atlantic salmon was shot with a rifle (after failing with a shotgun) in the Bushkill in Easton in Nov 1877 (see 1878 report page 940 - most Delaware R salmon stocking info is in NJ section starting at pg 938)

Looking at the 1897 report for the title year, US stockings in PA included shad, Quinnat (king) salmon, Atlantic salmon, LL salmon, rainbow trout, black bass, and rock bass. Always wondered why the feds needed to introduce rock bass to the Delaware drainage.

Earlier reports show trying to introduce huchen/Danube salmon in the Delaware as well as Atlantics and kings.

An interesting entry in 1886. Those 19,000 eggs were landlocked salmon eggs planted in the infamous dam that failed three years later.

 

[riverwhy]

An interesting entry in 1886. Those 19,000 eggs were landlocked salmon eggs planted in the infamous dam that failed three years later.

View attachment 1641228811

Those were for Carnegie and Frick to catch!

 

[JeffP]

Those were for Carnegie and Frick to catch!

That is interesting!

 

[k-bob]

not sure fishing in SEPA is the first thing I would do back in 1897... maybe buy some nyc real estate first!... seriously, even in NC and NEPA deforestation and its consequences for streams were on:

Geomorphic response to catastrophic flooding in north-central Pennsylvania from Tropical Storm Lee (September 2011): Intersection of fluvial disequilibrium and the legacy of logging | Geosphere | GeoScienceWorld

pubs.geoscienceworld.org

"Streams in this region appear to be in a phase of disequilibrium largely in response to major shifts in sediment delivery from their watersheds caused by historic logging and a series of floods ∼100 yr ago. Widespread clearcutting (A.D. 1850–1920) contributed large volumes of sediment to these streams...."

...

"Basinwide deforestation and channel modification associated with logging during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries destabilized these fluvial systems; shifting channel patterns in these gravel-bed streams from a natural multithread system into a single channel system by the construction of berms that disconnected the main channel from its floodplain."