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"In the sixties [1860's] many clubs were formed at Newport, West Island, Block Island and Montauk, and at Cuttyhunk and Pasque Islands where the waters were chummed with menhaden and where the members fished from rocks and from iron stands built on the rocky points that jut out into the sea.
I have known my father, the late George Griswold, who was a keen fisherman, to bring home before breakfast, four fish that would weigh over fifty pounds each, but that was in the sixties at New London where no bass are now to be found.
Last season (1914) I heard of but three large fish taken in the waters off the Elizabeth Islands. They weighed 51, 52 and 73 pounds. The summer before but one large fish was reported.
The fishing clubs have been abandoned, the stands have been destroyed by the action of the sea and the waters are no longer chummed or fished, for the large striped bass have become a tradition of the past.
This has been caused by excessive net fishing, for the bass, being a migratory fish, has been and is still netted along the full length of the coast both going and coming as well as when in southern waters and the result has been fatal."
Frank Gray Griswold
Some Fish and Some Fishing, 1921
A little history
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