Fishing in the Adirondacks

Adirondack Guides provide a romantic picture of early life in the wilderness. They fished and hunted and lived a life that any young man or woman would envy; they could come and go as they pleased and no one told them what to do. Their woodsman skills were legend. They knew where prize game and the best fishing spots were. They made a living sharing these skills and guiding “sports” from the city on hunting and fishing expeditions.

It is easy to forget that they were also practical and well aware that their living depended upon plenty of fish to catch, and so it was that the first Fish Hatchery in the Adirondacks came about with the assistance of Adirondack Guides. In 1875 Emmett Marks, with the help of a number of guides, used local waters as spawning grounds for various types of fish and thousands of young Trout went into the lakes of the Fulton Chain. Marks went on to become a pioneer designer of fish hatcheries and an expert on fish.

In 1877 he brought millions of lake and brook trout eggs to Old Forge for what would be the first Fish Hatchery. It was located near the Old Forge Dam. Local guides helped Marks plant the young fish from this first spawn in 1878 in tributaries leading to lakes. And thus the first artificial fish hatchery in the Adirondacks came into being.

In 1885, local guides and area sportsmen joined together under the leadership of the Boonville Sportsman Club to gather contributions to construct and equip a hatching house for Salmon and Speckled Trout on the Fulton Chain. They were successful in raising the necessary $500 and guides went to work building a 20 by 36 foot building at the base of Fourth Lake at Cold Spring. Called the Fulton Chain Hatching House, its success depended on volunteer guides alternating among themselves each year the responsibility of gathering the spawn and hatching.

The selection of Cold Spring was carefully considered, based on a particular depth, quality and flow of water, but apparently not carefully enough. After two rather unproductive years the building and equipment was rafted down the Fulton Chain and skidded around the dam to a new site approximately where the Legion Hall and police station are now. Spring-fed holding ponds were located near the site of the cemetery.

The hatchery was eventually turned over to the State and it was operated in Old Forge until 1932 when the State closed it and moved it to Lake Delta in Rome.