Boldt Castle

[moog5050]

What a tremendous job they have done restoring this place.   Absolutely beautiful.   Haven’t been there since I was a kid and the restoration all took place in the last 20yrs.  Worth a visit if you haven’t been in a while.   Tomorrow we hit the water in search of pike and bass.  

[Robhuntandfish]

its a great place.  Really neat to know something like this exists around here.  Def a good day trip.  Good luck on the fishes.  The St lawrence is so clear you can see bottom at 50ft!  Some great smallies there for sure.  Light line or flourocarbon leaders! 

[moog5050]

12 minutes ago, Robhuntandfish said:

its a great place.  Really neat to know something like this exists around here.  Def a good day trip.  Good luck on the fishes.  The St lawrence is so clear you can see bottom at 50ft!  Some great smallies there for sure.  Light line or flourocarbon leaders! 

Capt we have for tomorrow is highly recommended.  Hopefully he puts us in the fish.  

[Adkhunter1590]

Went there a bunch of times as a kid when we camped up there. I need to take the family up there soon so I can see how well the restoration has gone. Definitely looks way better in your pics than I remember! Fishing up there is awesome. We always got into the pike big time. Good luck!

[Paula]

I was there almost 20 years ago, would love to see it again

[wolc123]

Bolt castle is cool.   I like the musky over the fireplace in the billiard room.   There is usually a nice smallmouth under the tour boat dock.   I have taken a few from there when I dropped the kids off for ice-cream.     I did not get a chance to try for one there last week while we were up.  The smallmouth bite was off from what we usually see in late June, but the Largemouth bite was very good in Lake of the Isles and Goose bay.  We brought back plenty of vacuum-sealed fillets to get us thru winter.   Lots of fish in the perfect "eating size" range of 12 - 16".    Filletting largemouths is easier on my hands, but they don't fight nearly as well as the smallmouths.   The pike bite was up a bit from the last few seasons.  I think they do well with the high water levels. 

The one day that we did not get our limits (there was an East wind), my 15 yr old daughter caught a 13-1/2 inch largemouth off the dock in Goose bay, while casting a broken off yellow rubber jig at a pop bottle that was floating in the solid green weed cover.   She screamed when it erupted up thru the solid weed matt to grab her lure.   I had just finished filletting our morning catch and really did not want to get the stuff back out for one fish but she insisted that we keep it and eat it.   I threw it in the boat's livewell and paddled out with a kayak and a heavy duty rod/reel with a weedless yellow frog lure.   Casting that into the weed matt, just past the next dock, yielded a fat 16-1/2 inch largemouth.   That one pulled the kayak around a bit then burried in the weeds.  Added to my daughters fish, it made another good freezer pack of fish, but still left me one short of my limit that day.   Our other daugther turned 16 the day before, and did not have a licence yet, so she could not fish that day (I am a stickler for the rules).       

2 hours ago, moog5050 said:

Capt we have for tomorrow is highly recommended.  Hopefully he puts us in the fish.  

 

[BigVal]

4 more days of work and I'm headed up for 10 nights!! Cant wait 

[Lawdwaz]

Great castle and the story surrounding it was fascinating. 

http://www.boldtcastle.com/visitorinfo/about

If you've never seen it, you should.

[Jeremy K]

My buddies cousin is one of the stone masons who worked there.

[Nomad]

Enjoy !  Last time I was in A Bay was the early ‘80s Forth of July , it was a destination for bikers . You couldn’t drive a car down the streets ,they were packed with bikes and crowds of people . This was before the “ rubs.” 

We rode up with our helmets hanging off the sides of our bikes filled with ice and beer .... and still stopped at every  bar , and Oswego has tons of bars !

It was pretty crazy then , fights all,over, the cops “ tuned up “ my buddy’s Harley with their night sticks .

He used to have the front page of the Watertown newspaper, headline “bikers take over town ! “ 

Makes me want to buy a rat bobber and take off across country : ) 

[rob-c]

15 hours ago, moog5050 said:

What a tremendous job they have done restoring this place.   Absolutely beautiful.   Haven’t been there since I was a kid and the restoration all took place in the last 20yrs.  Worth a visit if you haven’t been in a while.   Tomorrow we hit the water in search of pike and bass.  

How are they coming along in the upper floors ? When my wife and I we’re there last year they still had two of the upper floors to do. Any progress ? 

The stags over looking the river  is one of me favorites there . 

[moog5050]

Still working on upper floors.  Stained glass dome is complete.  First two floors looked complete but wow what a difference from when I was here last in the 80s

[BizCT]

Wow. I haven’t been there since a kid in the mid 90’s.


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[moog5050]

23 minutes ago, Biz-R-OWorld said:

Wow. I haven’t been there since a kid in the mid 90’s.


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Really is beautiful.  Promised my wife I would build her one just like it.  Lol

[moog5050]

Oh and fishing was pretty good.   Joel caught the lunker of the day at 5lbs.  Offshore lunch was really good.   

My wife landed the smallest and only non-smallmouth.   

[TreeGuy]

Oh and fishing was pretty good.   Joel caught the lunker of the day at 5lbs.  Offshore lunch was really good.   
My wife landed the smallest and only non-smallmouth.   

How long you there for ?? My friend is up next week and he's a musky guide ..... Get you a 55" !!

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[moog5050]

14 hours ago, TreeGuy said:

How long you there for ?? My friend is up next week and he's a musky guide ..... Get you a 55" !!

Sent from my LM-V405 using Tapatalk
 

Holding out for Treeguy to guide me for Muskie 

[Daveboone]

On ‎8‎/‎9‎/‎2019 at 11:00 PM, Nomad said:

 

"We rode up with our helmets hanging off the sides of our bikes filled with ice and beer .... and still stopped at every  bar , and Oswego has tons of bars !"

Sorry dude, but Boldt Castle is in Alexandria Bay, not Oswego.....

[Daveboone]

We first were there in the early seventies...and at that time it was really just a ruin. The Power House was a pile of rubble, and the "Play House" was ready to fall down.  A lot of the main building was just horrible, open to the weather.

In 1980 a friend and I stopped there to stretch our legs, canoeing around Wellesley Island. It was officially closed at that time, the Bridge Authority only recently having acquired it. We chatted with the foreman in charge of the current work, which involved primarily enclosing and stabilizing it. He told us a Syracuse University architecture student used Boldt Castle as his graduate thesis, and completed plans to bring the place up to completion.

Thanks to this fellow donating his completed work to the bridge authority, they had what they needed to move forward. We were there a couple years ago, and it is truly amazing to see what they had done, especially in finding and acquiring pieces from the families own furniture and never used building supplies from the original construction to complete the project. My favorite part of the island, is actually on another island...the Boldt Castle boat house, across the river on Wellesley Island, complete with period boats.

To complete any visit to the area, a must see is the Clayton Boat Museum, which wonderfully documents boating in the area, with one of the best antique boat collections in the country...including the Boldt boat house. The boat house is opulence in itself...it was un motored, and was towed around for parties, day trips, etc. 

There is no better way of spending a hot summer w/e in NY than going on a boat tour (all of which include an unlimited imte visit to the Island, ) and the boat museum. Alexandria Bay by itself doesn't offer anything we are interested in...Clayton, further to the west, is much more mature, friendly with better restaurants, and a beautiful open village with a lot of exposure to the river.

 

[Northcountryman]

Yeah beautiful place, went there as a kid , would love to go back sometime 

[moog5050]

2 minutes ago, Daveboone said:

We first were there in the early seventies...and at that time it was really just a ruin. The Power House was a pile of rubble, and the "Play House" was ready to fall down.  A lot of the main building was just horrible, open to the weather.

In 1980 a friend and I stopped there to stretch our legs, canoeing around Wellesley Island. It was officially closed at that time, the Bridge Authority only recently having acquired it. We chatted with the foreman in charge of the current work, which involved primarily enclosing and stabilizing it. He told us a Syracuse University architecture student used Boldt Castle as his graduate thesis, and completed plans to bring the place up to completion.

Thanks to this fellow donating his completed work to the bridge authority, they had what they needed to move forward. We were there a couple years ago, and it is truly amazing to see what they had done, especially in finding and acquiring pieces from the families own furniture and never used building supplies from the original construction to complete the project. My favorite part of the island, is actually on another island...the Boldt Castle boat house, across the river on Wellesley Island, complete with period boats.

To complete any visit to the area, a must see is the Clayton Boat Museum, which wonderfully documents boating in the area, with one of the best antique boat collections in the country...including the Boldt boat house. The boat house is opulence in itself...it was un motored, and was towed around for parties, day trips, etc. 

There is no better way of spending a hot summer w/e in NY than going on a boat tour (all of which include an unlimited imte visit to the Island, ) and the boat museum. Alexandria Bay by itself doesn't offer anything we are interested in...Clayton, further to the west, is much more mature, friendly with better restaurants, and a beautiful open village with a lot of exposure to the river.

 

I have to agree.  Even though we stayed in Alex Bay, we liked Clayton better and spent most of day 2 there.   We had fun but the food in the islands was not great (except the lobster rolls at Bella’s in Clayton) and the offshore lunch cooked by our fishing Capt.   3 1/2 days was plenty for us there.  

Watertown does have my favorite burger place “Skewed” so we did stop by there too for the messy Presley- a burger with peanut butter, banana jam and bacon and a side of poutine.    That was one of the highlights besides fishing and boldt.   

[Daveboone]

Bellas…….YUM! 

Petes Trattoria in Watertown is a sleeper! It sounds informal, but is a great, reasonable old school Italian restaurant.

A little closer, Tin Pan Galley in Sacketts Harbor is one of the best eats in the area. A bit pricey, but they have great food, an outdoor patio, and Sacketts is very historic, with the historic Sacketts Harbor battlefield and museum to explore (U.S. Grant was stationed there for a while, early in his career),

What did your shore lunch include? We fish the area pretty regularly with good success, but I have always wanted to go on a guided trip with the wife, and have a shore lunch.

 

[Lawdwaz]

Back in the 70’s my grandparents kept their boat at Bonnie Castle.  I spent some of my summer vacation there; fishing, swimming and boating. 

I think I took my family there for a few vacations before they got bored with it.   I still love the area. 

Edited August 11, 2019 by Lawdwaz

[wolc123]

It really is a beautiful place.  That region is tied with the Adirondacks, for my favorite places to be.   I feel very blessed to have family with a cottage and a home in each of those spots.   It has been about (4) years since I have been inside Bolt castle (usually I drop off the kids and fish nearby while they tour the castle or eat ice cream at the snack bar).   Maybe it is time for me to go back inside and check out the progress.  Do they still have the musky on the mantle in the billiard room ?  At home in WNY, we have a Niagara river musky, along with a St Lawrence pike and walleye, hanging above the bar in our own billiard room.  I caught all of those "by accident" while fishing for bass (I have yet to mount a bass).            

The last time I was at Bolt castle, a couple from Texas was having their wedding there, and planned to do their honeymoon in the area.   It amazed me how the folks from down south talked about that place in the summer, like us northerner's talk about Hawaii, or other tropic retreats in the winter.   Apparently, there is no place on earth with a more comfortable summer climate than the Thousand islands region.   I would say that is true from about July 1 until around August 15.   During that time, the main river temperature runs 75 - 78 degrees (perfect swimming) temperature range, and it keeps the air temperature on those islands in that comfortable range.   We are already seeing the start of the cooler nights now, so your trip was just in the nick of time to enjoy the best of the best. 

When I am up there, I spend most of my time on the water or in the water, and I have not been to Clayton in quite a while.   A buddy from work asked me to stop over there for the big antique boat auction and flea-market last weekend, but the fishing and swimming was too good further down river for me to leave it.  I also don't care much for the touristy/shopping stuff in Alex bay.  Prices on fishing tackle and price and quality at the food joints is better down in the nearby Black lake area (The fish-bone grill is my kind of place).   If you need boating supplies or service, Shimmerhorn, downstream on Chippewa bay is the place to go.        

    

33 minutes ago, moog5050 said:

I have to agree.  Even though we stayed in Alex Bay, we liked Clayton better and spent most of day 2 there.   We had fun but the food in the islands was not great (except the lobster rolls at Bella’s in Clayton) and the offshore lunch cooked by our fishing Capt.   3 1/2 days was plenty for us there.  

Watertown does have my favorite burger place “Skewed” so we did stop by there too for the messy Presley- a burger with peanut butter, banana jam and bacon and a side of poutine.    That was one of the highlights besides fishing and boldt.   

 

[moog5050]

31 minutes ago, Daveboone said:

Bellas…….YUM! 

Petes Trattoria in Watertown is a sleeper! It sounds informal, but is a great, reasonable old school Italian restaurant.

A little closer, Tin Pan Galley in Sacketts Harbor is one of the best eats in the area. A bit pricey, but they have great food, an outdoor patio, and Sacketts is very historic, with the historic Sacketts Harbor battlefield and museum to explore (U.S. Grant was stationed there for a while, early in his career),

What did your shore lunch include? We fish the area pretty regularly with good success, but I have always wanted to go on a guided trip with the wife, and have a shore lunch.

 

So apparently the guides all have exclusive rights to use one island from 11-3pm each day for the lunch.   Our guide and another cooked together on a wood burning outdoor stove.  I think the lunch is the same for all guides.   Fresh salad, fresh BLTs, they fry the fish you catch and some salt potatoes and then french toast for dessert.   It was all very good and eating in it outdoors on the island was icing on the cake.   Kinda pricey to catch bass but still fun.