Lake Winnipesaukee is about thirty miles long and varies from one to ten miles in width. The lake is almost five hundred feet above the sea level and the water is very clear and pure. Winnipesaukee has an area of seventy-one square miles, exclusive of two hundred and seventy-four islands, ten of which have an area of more than one hundred acres each …
The fishing in Lake Winnipesaukee is unsurpassed in New England, all things considered. The state fish and game commissioners are stocking its waters with land locked salmon, and already many specimens of gamy fish have been taken weighing from seven to twelve pounds each. Lake trout are very numerous and afford good sport both summer and winter. It is no uncommon thing for one row boat to bring in fifteen or twenty trout weighing from three to ten pounds each as the result of one day’s trolling during the spring months. In the summer, black bass, pickerel, perch and other excellent food fish are taken in immense numbers.
Excerpted from ‘Laconia, the City on the Lakes’ by Charles W. Vaughan, originally appearing in National Magazine as edited by Joe Mitchell Chapple, published by Chapple Publishing Company, Ltd., Boston, 1902.