BROOK TROUT. 
93 
In 1905, in answer to an inquiry by “Maine Woods,” State Fish Commissioner H. O. 
Stanley stated that the largest trout he had ever seen taken in Rangeley waters and weighed, 
was caught by Luman Sargent, an Upton guide, which tipped the scales at llj pounds. The 
next largest was one that he himself had caught which weighed IO 2 pounds. Mr. Stanley said 
that this was the famous fish that George Shepard Page took to New Jersey. Mr. Stanley 
continued that in his boyhood days “more than 60 years ago” he had seen larger fish which his 
father used to bring home from those famous waters in the fall. The fish were not weighed, 
having been dressed and salted when they were brought home. But as he recalled them they 
looked more like codfish than trout. He said that he had no doubt but that larger fish than the 
first two mentioned had been caught but he had never seen one weighed. 
The records and data referred to in the following pages were compiled from Forest and 
Stream, the American Angler, and Maine Woods. Back numbers of the last, previous to 
1903, were not available but they supplement the other two which about that time ceased to 
publish regular accounts. This information is probably far from complete except perhaps that 
relating to the very large fish. Probably all fish above nine pounds of weight that have been 
caught since the first issues of the Forest and Stream have been recorded and probably most 
of those of nine and eight pounds taken by anglers. In other words, those that were large enough 
to attract attention in a region noted for large trout. 
Aside from the fabulous monsters previously mentioned, no record of a Rangeley trout 
above 13 pounds appears, and this by subsequent reduction to fact could not possibly have 
weighed over 9 or 92 pounds. 
There are four records of Rangeley Lakes trout w^eighing from 12 to 122 pounds, of which 
two are authentic, the others being more or less uncertain estimates. All but one of these were 
taken on the spawning beds and the exception is the 9^ pounder just referred to and which is 
discussed later. 
The first was the one caught by Mr. Stanley with which George Shepard Page s name has 
been associated. Concerning this fish Mr. Page wrote in Forest and Stream of June, 1883, that 
in 1867 he carried alive to his private pond in New Jersey a female trout weighing 8g pounds 
and a male that weighed exactly 10 pounds. They were weighed after they had been three 
weeks in captivity, during which time they had eaten nothing. In Mr. Page’s words. They 
had endured the discomforts of nine miles across Rangeley Lake in a fish car which contained 
forty-three brook trout averaging 5 lbs. each; Airty-five miles by wagon ride, four hundred 
miles by railroad; across Boston and New York by express wagon; and two miles by wagon 
in New Jersey. Describing this experience on one occasion to the late Prof. Agassiz, I inquired 
what they probably lost in weight. He repUed, ‘The male trout at least two and one-half 
pounds and the female one and one-half pounds.’ ” This would make them twelve and one-half 
and nine and seven-eighths pounds respectively. The male trout was thirty inches in length 
and eighteen inches in circumference and eleven inches in diameter. In Forest and Stream 
