Syracuse.com - Salmon bonanza: Lake Ontario continues to produce a bumper crop (includes video)

[HuntingNY-News]

This year's chinook salmon catch in August was the highest since the DEC began keeping records in 1985. Watch video

It’s the best of times for Lake Ontario salmon fishermen.

Capt. Tony Buffa, longtime Lake Ontario fishing guide, set out from the Oswego Marina at 6 a.m. Monday with three clients aboard his 31-foot Penn Yan boat. By 8:30 a.m., he was back in the marina. His three anglers had limited out, boating nine chinook salmon.

“I called my afternoon people, telling them to get here as soon as possible,” he said. Buffa was back out at 11 a.m.

“By 2 p.m. — done. Again, everyone limited out,” he said. “This entire season is reminiscent of what we used to see back in the late-1980s and early 1990s, when there was an over-abundance of fish and the catch rates were off the charts.”

Actually, it’s even better, according to Jana Lantry, an aquatic biologist with the DEC’s Lake Ontario unit.

She said this year’s chinook salmon catch rate in August was the highest since the DEC began keeping records in 1985. “It’s never been this good before.”

Charter boat captains up and down the lake’s south shore have been cashing in on chinook and coho salmon since the spring. The chinooks have been averaging 17 to 25 pounds, with an occasional lunker pushing 30.

"At the eastern end, we started catching kings in May. That was abnormal. You never see that,” said Capt. Mitch Franz, of Mit-She Charters out of Henderson Harbor. “The whole south shore of the lake has been lit up all summer. I talked to the DEC this week. We just had the best salmon fishing ever in August.”

That’s not only good news for anglers, it’s good news for the local economy. Fishing is big business in Oswego County, where the annual impact has been estimated at $42.6 million, based on a 2007 angler survey done by the DEC.

Last year, 30,865 fishing licenses were sold to out-of-state residents and international visitors. That doesn’t include online sales or licenses sold at stores such as Gander Mountain or Bass Pro Shops to people who are on their way to fish in Oswego County, said Janet Clerkin, the county’s tourism and public information coordinator.

The salmon fishing bonanza on the lake should continue through this month and possibly into the beginning of October.

This time of year the chinook and coho are coming toward shore. They’ve already started staging for their annual fall spawning runs inland.

Due to the hot weather and lack of rain, though, the rivers and tributaries where they spawn are low and warm. Most of the salmon are waiting out in the lake for colder temperatures and higher waters before swimming up waterways like the Oswego and Salmon rivers.

For many of these fish, Buffa said, the fish are taking in their final meals prior to the spawn. They’re hungry and very territorial — eager to strike out at what’s put in front of them.

Buffa said his outings the past couple of weeks have been close to home, trolling back and forth between the mouth of the Oswego Harbor and Nine Mile Point.

The most effective lures/baits, Buffa said, have been EChip attractors with a trailing A-TOM-MIK fly, along with attractors followed by strips of herring put on a special harness. Buffa said he also mixes things up with various spoons and J-plugs.

Capt. Mike Conroy, of Proteus Sportsfishing, out of Oswego, said the large numbers of staging salmon near the mouths of the Salmon and Oswego rivers have made for easy pickings.

“It’s like having a tree stand with two deer runs on either side of you,” Conroy said.

Interviews with charter boat captains and DEC aquatic biologists revealed similar explanations as to why the salmon fishing has been so good.

For eight to nine weeks during the spring, a northwest wind blew on the lake, resulting in colder water temperatures along the southern shore. It also stacked up the bait fish along the shore.

“It was kind of a perfect storm for salmon,” Conroy said. “Light winter, beaucoup bait. The bait were here and made for an easy lunch.”

The large numbers of fish that continue to be caught, though, are the result of another factor — the success of the natural reproduction of salmon in the lake’s tributaries.

Each year, the DEC and Canadian hatcheries dump millions of salmon fry into the lake. Charter boat captains have been reporting that 40 to 50 percent of their catches this year are naturally grown fish.

The way they determine that is both the U.S. and Canadian hatcheries have a machine that clips the adipose fin on the back of every fish raised in the hatchery. Many of the fish being landed by anglers have that fin intact.

“We’re reaping the benefits of what happened three to four years ago in the Salmon River and the other tributaries,” Buffa said.

The charter boat captains said the close-to-shore fishing will end in a couple of weeks when the salmon head inland to spawn. Anglers will then turn their attention to such perennial hotspots as the Salmon and Oswego rivers.

“When that happens, you’ll be able to walk (across the water) on the fish,” Franz said.

Try your luck

Lake Ontario charter boat captains charge an average of $500 for a six-hour outing. Depending on the size of a captain’s boat, four to six anglers can be accommodated. For a list of charter boat captains, go to the Oswego Tourism Web site. Click on “fishing and hunting.”

View the full article on The Syracuse Outdoors Blog