Quote:
Originally Posted by DZ
Right on Dave.
Been known to have rested my sticks against it along with using it as an occasional hanger for the plug bag and jacket on hot summer mid-watch nights. Was also the very first place I snuck a peak at the original Rebel F80/F90 Super Minnows that another sharpie caster was bailing fish with. He was kind to the kid - learned alot on that rock. So please, respect the stand for it has history.
DZ
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Hey, Dennis, I've found it also serves as a good leaning post for an aging surfcaster to take a smoke break once in a while, too...
It's always been interesting to me as I fish those spots to wonder who built the stands and whose footsteps I may be walking in, when line was twisted linen, the rods were made of greenheart wood or bamboo with agate guides and reels had a leather thumbstall for a drag. Makes the catches all that more impressive, doesn't it
As for Peg Rock, I just always assumed that the stand was private, probably built by the owner of that estate behind it.
The single stands were mostly private - like Alexander Aggassiz's at Castle Hill, which I have photos of. He and his students also used it for collecting specimens for his marine studies and I have an 1851 Agassiz volume illustrated by his wife that references it.
There was another well-known private stand (well-known at that time) just across the way at what we now call Perry's, originally built by Thomas Winans - a while ago I picked up a stereoscopic photo of his stand in front of the Winans (later Perry) estate which was there called 'Bleak House'. An illustration of that stand in action also occurs in a late 1890's volume of the NY Forest, Fish and Game Commission Report.
In 1921 Frank Griswold wrote "Mr Thomas Winans and his nephew took in three months' fishing from stands built for the purpose on the rocks in front of his house at Newport, Rhode Island, 124 striped bass weighing 2,921 pounds, an average of 23 pounds, the largest being a fish of sixty pounds."
The local club locations - like Graves Point and Newport's Gooseberry - are the ones marked by the multiple stands. The Graves Point Club changed hands 3 times. It was built by financier and railroad magnate Seth Barton French, then sold to JP Morgan upon his death, and then sold again to T. Suffern Tailer, a sportsman who developed Ocean Links, a golf course on Ocean Drive's west side next to the Newport Country Club when Morgan died. Tailer loved the spot so much he stipulated that it never be sold upon his passing.
Here's a tidbit for you, Dennis - when Tailer took over the club, he hired an enterprising young lad to work as his gaffer and chummer...named Clifford Tallman
To the west of Graves are the remnants of the stands owned and built by Theodore Davis, an archeologist and Egyptologist who built The Reef (which locals have always referred to as The Bells). Lectures on natural history, archeology and travel were great entertainment in those pre-movie, radio and TV days, so Agassiz, Davis and Winans (a gentleman inventor) were widely recognized. The only building now left standing from The Reef is the rest and ranger station at Brenton Park. Although it was more than a few years ago, I do recall my dad taking me out to the Drive to see the fire when the word got out that the mansion had been set ablaze
Ultimately, the crash of the striped bass population at the turn of the 20th century brought interest in the use of the stands almost to a halt and what little is left is what we see today, rusted iron nubs poking out of holes in the rocks drilled by hand. You also see a lot of old fish trap stanchions in the same areas.
What didn't get taken out by neglect and the elements, the '38 Hurricane finished, including the Graves Point Club.
Most of the striped bass club members went on to fish at the tarpon 'camps' of Florida ( they were 'camps' in the same sense that the Newport mansions were 'cottages') and at Catalina Island on the West Coast to form the Tuna Club to fish for 'horse mackeral' - blue-fin tuna - that they already knew from their own New England waters, as well as sword and marlin.
In the end, it seemed that many of the members of the old striped bass clubs ended up becoming conservationists and insisted on more sportsmanlike behavior when they formed the Catalina Tuna Club. It makes you think that perhaps they were chastened by the effects of the crash they witnessed when the striped bass disappeared.
All in all, after all the musty old stuff I've dug through, that seems to be the point. History can - and should - be a cautionary tale, as much as anything else, regarding the importance of protecting our resource.
Unfortunately, my imaging computer is down right now ..
.. or I'd post a few of the photos that haven't seen the light of day in quite a while.
Geez, I guess it's like the comedians say
Please, don't get me started...
Boy, I've gotta put that lecture on my bucket list one these days
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