[Genesee Beer Fishing Contest]

Hi, this is a little off topic. But the ad with the woman in the orange hair band 

“ a little more exciting “

...is my mother. She is 84, she was 25 in the picture.

I was wondering airdale if you actually have these! I would love to buy it for her! 
 

My married name is also Genesse, spelling is different but still, it’s all a little ironic, I must say!!! 
 

Thanks for any info! 
 

 

 

[Genesee Beer Fishing Contest]

On 4/7/2019 at 1:23 PM, airedale said:

Remember When? As a youngster I thought it would be great to catch something that would make it in the Genny record book.

From The Utica OD's John Pitarresi

Louis A. Wehle was, among other things, a brewer.

He brewed Genesee Beer.

He also was a very dedicated outdoorsman. One day, he put those things together, and the Genesee New York State Fishing Contest was born.

I admit that Genesee wasn’t my favorite beer, but I still have a vivid and startlingly wonderful memory of the two ice cold bottles of Jenny that I received in partial payment for several hours of cleaning the gigantic Hobart dishwasher at the Hamilton College commons on a hot spring day more than 40 years ago.

No champagne ever tasted better than that, but the good feelings I have about Genesee beer have more to do with the fishing contest the brewery ran from 1946 into the 1990s.

Each spring, in grocery stores, bait shops, and taverns across the state, you could findthe pamphlets for the contest. There would be a list of the previous season’s winning fish and anglers in 13 categories. The lures and baits they were caught on were included, along with some fishing tips, a list of state records, a fish identification chart, an entry blank and rules, and, best of all, a map detailing where all the top catches were made.

I’d grab that thing, hope that some of the big fish had caught somewhere near my home, and then dream of fishing that spot. Which is something I rarely got a chance to do unless one of those red fish-shaped indicators nosed up to the midpoint of the Niagara River, which was about a half-mile from my house.

There were these fish all over the place. The Finger Lakes. Lake Ontario. Oneida Lake. Wiscoy Creek. Chautauqua Lake. Lake Champlain. The Hudson River. I had only a dim awareness of most of those places, and had little hope of ever seeing them. Which maybe made it all the more exciting.

The contest was the brainchild of Wehle, who had reorganized the brewery after prohibition. It was a big deal for many years, certainly were I grew up.

I recently found one of the old contest brochures, from 1987. The grand prize cash awards were $75, $50 and $25 for the top three fish of each species.

Strangely, in the listings for the 1986 winners, there were very few fish from Central New York. There was a northern pike of 15 pounds from the Mohawk River, taken by William Schultz, and a rock bass, also from the river, taken by Joseph Kiuber. Mike Stolarczyk caught a 5-pound, 9-ounce pickerel from the Black River that missed being the grand prize winner by five ounces, and Tami Stolarczyk placed third in rock bass with a 1-pound, 12½-ounce fish, also from the Black River.

There might be other local anglers in there – hometowns aren’t listed – and there might have been other fish caught locally, because the indicators don’t always match up with the lists.

I must have wished, as a little kid, that I might someday find my way into that list of winners. I know for sure, each year when I first saw that brochure, I got really fired up to fish.

That was the real power of the Genesee New York State Fishing Contest, I guess. Getting people excited about getting out and fishing. The contest has been gone a long time, and Louis A. Wehle even longer, but they both did a great job for a long time.