The Piseco Trout Club

 

Piseco Trout Club Button

The members of Piseco Trout Club were:

Henry Vail (President), Troy, NY
George B. Warren (Vice President), Troy, NY
Alfred Brooks (Secretary), Boston, MA
John B. Duane, Schenectady, NY
George W. Bethune, Philadelphia, PA
Isaac Gibson. New York City, NY
George Trot of Philadelphia, PA


The Piseco Trout Club, made up of seven members, was formed in 1842 and disbanded just nine years later. In the years they fished Piseco Lake a staggering 6,407 pounds of trout were caught by the members of the club, but only 383 pounds were taken in 1850, so they agreed to stop fishing Piseco, and let the lake recover. One wonders if this was when the phrase “fished out” was born.


The second oldest fishing club in the country, and the first in the Adirondacks, the Piseco Trout Club had a lodge built on the shore of the lake and aptly named it “Walton Hall”. These seven city dwellers (doctors, lawyers, and a Clergyman) gathered at Piseco Lake in the Town of Arietta, in Hamilton County (southern Adirondacks) for ten days to two weeks annually. They fished twice each day, in the morning and after dinner, one angler per boat, plus an oarsman. They trolled for lake trout and cast flies for speckled trout.


Brooks kept a journal of daily events and once wrote “…the rules of the club have been thoughtlessly violated this day by the junior member, an appropriate reprimand was administered by the president; the by-law provisions of section 10 not permitting any one to row his own boat.” Apparently, rowing was beneath gentleman anglers of means from the big city!


And what about the button pictured at the top of this page? Each of the seven members of the Piseco Trout Club wore a uniform of matching jackets with buttons of brass, custom made by the Scovill Manufacturing Co., of Waterbury, Connecticut. How many buttons would that total …35, 42, 49, 56 ??


I wonder how many other buttons have survived the past 170 years…
…and which member wore mine ?


George Washington Bethune, A Pastor, Worked Anonymously On Five Of The US Editions Of Izaak Walton's “The Compleat Angler” Under The Pseudonym "The American Editor"

Piseco Trout Club Member George Washington Bethune, A Pastor, Worked Anonymously On Five Of The US Editions Of Izaak Walton’s “The Compleat Angler” Under The Pseudonym “The American Editor”

An angler, sir, uses the finest tackle, and catches his fish scientifically – trout for instance – with the artificial fly, and he is mostly a quiet, well-behaved gentlemen. A fisherman, sir, uses any kind of ‘ooks and lines, and catches them any way; so he gets them it’s all one to ‘im, and he is generally a noisy fellah, sir, something like a gunner.”

- Dr. George Washington Bethune, 1847



In 1850 The Clubhouse Was Sold To Eli Rude. The Rude Family Had The Longest Residence In In Arietta At The Time.

In 1850 The Clubhouse Was Sold To Eli Rude. The Rude Family Had The Longest Continuous Residence In Arietta At The Time.

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