178 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



planting. Clear lakes and ponds on mountain tops that had never contained other 

 fish than trout and cyprinidas suffered from the black bass epidemic or pest. The 

 Black River canal, which taps the Erie at Rome, played its part in spreading the 

 black bass. 



In January, 1872, black bass invaded the Adirondack wilderness, when, at the 

 suggestion of ex-Governor Horatio Seymour, one of the State Fish Commissioners, 

 sixty adult black bass were deposited in Raquette Lake to spread into Big and Little 

 Forked Lakes, Shed Lake, Brown's Tract Ponds, Utowana, Eagle and Blue Mountain 

 Lakes. The last named lake, formerly called Tallow Lake and later Emmons Lake, 

 once had the reputation of containing the largest lake trout of any of the interior 

 waters of the State. Schroon Lake stocked Paradox and Brant Lakes, and gradually 

 the trout were forced back and the black bass advanced from the borders to the inte- 

 rior of the Adirondack Wilderness, the original habitat of the brook and lake trout. 

 As the fruit of this indiscriminate stocking of small bodies of water, we have to-day 

 hundreds of ponds that offer no fishing worthy of the name; and this applies not only 

 to trout waters that have been planted with black bass, but to waters planted with the 

 same fish which before contained only coarse fish, so called. The black bass have 

 practically destroyed the food in these waters and are themselves dwarfed, and as food 

 preserves for mankind the ponds are useless. In some instances this state of affairs 

 can be remedied by planting food — not minnows, but crayfish, which breed rapidly 

 and are the natural food of the black bass. 



Lake George is believed to be the natural habitat of black bass, and the fish 

 probably found their way at an early period from the St. Lawrence through Lake 

 Champlain into Lake George. The largest individual black bass ever taken from 

 Lake George, up to a few years ago, weighed six and one-half .pounds. The Lake 

 contained no crayfish until it was stocked by the State, but since it was stocked with 

 crayfish, which are now abundant and on the increase, black bass of over seven 

 pounds have been taken. Probably the largest black bass of the small mouth species 

 ever taken from any water came from Long Pond in Warren County, now called Glen 

 Lake. I saw one bass caught from this Lake which weighed ten pounds, and another 

 was taken from it which weighed eleven and one-quarter pounds, and one was speared 

 in it which weighed thirteen pounds. Long Pond or Glen Lake was stocked with 

 thirteen little black bass brought from Lake George in a bait bucket. This plant 

 alone has resulted in tons of black bass being taken from the lake. 



Once a lake is planted with black bass they are there to stay. They may amount 

 to nothing as food or sport, but it is impossible to get rid of them, for no other 

 fish will exterminate them, and the only remedy for waters containing black bass 

 which have destroyed other fish and are dwarfed themselves is to try and supply 



