Quote:
Originally Posted by Flaptail
Wow! Lucky bastage, wasn't there suppossedly a 86 pounder caught and weighed there in the late 1800"s, unfortunately the documentation was lost or something I guess. Land of the big ones for sure!
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Yeah, Flap, there was an 86 pounder caught - and the operative phrase here is 'supposedly caught' - on the Island in 1887. The fisherman was a Providence attorney and politician named Francis W. Miner who summered on the Island at the Ocean View Hotel near Old Harbor. There was a bass stand right out back although a number of them were erected shortly afterwards.
If memory serves (and it doesn't very well lately, it seems
), the stand Miner caught the bass from was built by Henry Steers, nephew of James R Steers, the 87 year old guy pictured in my avatar. The stands and 2 of the 3 clubhouses are gone now, over the edge at Mohegan Bluffs. Miner's house is still there and now called Bit-O-Heaven and the locals refer to the area as Miner's Point.
As it turns out, the Steers in my avatar (which I didn't know when I used it in the logo for
The Angler's Art) is the great-great-grandfather of my best friend who was also my best man. (Boy, is
that weird - but then he actually does look like him in profile) Can't say fishing is genetically influenced though - my best bud isn't much of an angler, he couldn't catch crabs in a Cambodian cathouse.
The Steers brothers were well known as naval architects and ship-builders. They designed and built the yacht America and sailed it to victory in 1851 to start the America's Cup.
Anyway, Miner's fish was never - to my knowledge - verified.
However, there was a photographer on the Island at that time who took pictures of the notable catches of the day and I have a recent lead on one of his descendents - who has his original photos.
Stay tuned
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