Sg......old Skagit River stuff

I stumbled across THIS while looking up some details on an old cash register that was built for a guy in Hamilton in 1927. I haven't read it, but thought you might find some old fishing stories in it.

Just got a chance to scan through the above link....interesting, but not exactly what I expected. Try THIS . I'm sure there is more, but I ran into quite a few dead links as well.

Good stuff. Trout fishing, pheasant & duck hunting in the same day. Mr. Wilkeson covered some ground in his life.

I have some files of similar old fishing exploits on the Skagit in the early years. I'm not sure if it's the same person or not, without looking them up. Definitely unrecognizable by any of today's expectations. Thanks for sharing.

Sg

Hey, Slab Happy. I think we know each other, virtually. I publisher the Skagit River Journal, which you referred to. And thank you very much. On this lovely rainy afternoon, I do my weekly check on stats for visitors. We passed five million page views a while ago and we get 2500 readers or so a day for our entire site, but our entry home page is usually in the 70-110 range. So lo and behold, one day last week we had 1248 unique visitors to the home page. Needless to say I checked to see if it was a fluke, but no. Anyway, one of the main culprits, it turns out, is this very Piscatorial site, which I did not know about, and this very thread.

You referred people to Frank Wilkeson. He indeed is a piscatorial historian. Columnist for the New York Times, lived at various times in Fairhaven, Sedro, Hamilton and Stehekin, mainly in the 1890s. Wrote a famous civil war novel, Turned Inside Out. While here, he claimed to have fished every major stream and tributary of the Skagit, and there are a lot. I was thrilled to find in his 1890 column that he and his boy rode across my childhood farm, east of Sedro-Woolley, to fish. I've co-authored a book about Frank and the fishing columns we found in the morgues of the Times and the New York Sun. The Old Soldier Goes Fishing is the planned title; we hope to have it in print by 2013-14. If any of you are interested I will post the info as we get nearer to publication. By the way, yes, the town of Wilkeson is named for the family, but I did not find any evidence in my research that any of them actually lived there.

Hi Noel!
Funny how things run around in circles.
I'll have some pics for you soon.
Take care.

Hey, I figured it was you. I am still impressed at the numbers of people got directed from here to mine. By the way, the site is http://www.skagitriverjournal.com. We have about 800 stories, with several fishing stories, which I must remember to create a portal section for. Here is one I suspect many of you will like, by a dear, recently departed friend, Cecil Hittson, who fished every upriver stream, especially on the north shore of the Skagit, around Lyman where he grew up and never really left, although he lived elsewhere. You can read it at: http://www.skagitriverjournal.com/SRiver/Fishing/Hittson/Fishing01-Hittson01.html
And you will find many basic details there that only experienced fishermen know. You'll also find there the link to our Fishing portal, which I am preparing right now in honor of you all, our new friends. It includes some of Frank's columns that will be in the book, fish plants and more. We have an online subscribers magazine, too.

Noel, added your site to my favorites as I can see the history of the area will be of great interest. Thanks

Great contribution Noel. Thank you!

Sg

I trust that post was not from the grave, Jerry Garcia. Thanks for the kind thoughts. The fishing portal section will be loaded onto the site this evening.