Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-10-20
The Fishless Hudson.

We do not know of a river Of it's s,.>
in the United States which contains SO
few non-migratory fish as the Hudson.
Its only commercial fisheries of AM
value are those of the shad and stripe.
bass. The former has been sustained
! by the Fish Commission, OF it woule
have been as extinct as the sturgeon
fisheries, and the large bass are taken
under the ice in brackish water, where
they go to winter, and are only tran
| sient dodgers, not permanent residents.
In boyhood days we had what we then
considered good fishing about Albany
in the river and in the small streams
emptying in it. That is, we could OBJ
tain strings of fish weighing from ten
to thirty pounds in a days fishing with
hook and line. The fish were perch,
cells, sunfish, rock bass and bullheads,
as q species of catfish is there called.
Thirty years ago we have seen boats an
chored in the channel all the way from
Albany to Van Wie's Point, fishing for
small striped bass of from half a pound
to two pounds weight, using sturgeon
spawn for bait, and taking fair num-
bers.
In those days a walk down the Green
bush bank to the well-known Red House
would usually give a view of leaping
sturgeon, and we have seen az many as
twenty leaps in an evening. Sturgeon
was then so common that it was de-
spised by many, and it was known
along the river, eve rs far down as
New York City. as "Albany beef"
Now it is a rarity and a luxury. After
the Erie Canal was opened the black
bass struggled down or up into it, and
few were taken in the river; but they
have never increased to any extent, and
the perch are nearly extinct, while the
striped bass about Albany have entirely
disappeared. We have seen school
boys take great strings of fish in the
Wynantskill, below Albany, and also
in that bayou below Downs Point called
the Island Creek.
Further down the river the striped
bass fisheries of the Hudson were very
good thirty years ago. We have just
e some extracts from papers about
that time. The Sullivan County Wing
of May II, 1851, said: "On Thursday
morning last nearly two tons of bass, of
all sizes, varying from n to sixty
pounds, were taken near Denning's
Point, opposite Newburgh, in a seine
owned by Van Mort and Knevils. Most
of them were sent to Albany for a mar
ket." The Albany Register, May, 1854,
contained the following: ''The annual
fishery on the Hudson, below the High
lands, has opened. Nine hundred
pounds of bass were sent to New York
from Croton banks by the cars on Sat-
urday evening; four hundred pounds,
with a respectable sprinkling of shad,
the next evening, and the weather being
favorable. now, the probability is that
much larger ~consignments will be sent
off every evening for the greater part of
q month. The shad are Of a good size,
and some of the bass taken reachtwenty
and twenty-five pounds each"
We have no theory to advance as to
the cause of the falling off of the fish
cries of this river; we merely state the
facts. 1t would seem as if a river of
this size should furnish some fishing,
but while the black bass have been in
the river for twenty or thirty years, no
II would now think of catching one
there unless by accident. The Hudson
is said by Colonel Mcdonald, who
gathered the fishery statistics of our
coast rivers for the census of 1880. to
exceed all others, ven the famed Ches-
apeake, in it's yield of shad; but its
stock of anglers fishes have gone, and
the 'snoble Hudson" dwindled to the
dimensions of a creek in dry weather
above Castleton, is now only inhabited
by the despised sucker and a stray perch
or two which wanders about seeking
food in the places which once supported
thousands of its kindred. Truly it may
be called the fshless Hudson.-Forest
and Stream.