Syracuse.com - Cross Lake is the place were local sturgeon in NYS Canal system spend their cold months

[HuntingNY-News]

In addition to the sturgeon, the USGS research team captured and released a 28 1/2 inch walleye ;weighing well over 10 pounds and a sizeable tiger muskie.

Emily Waldt, a USGS technician, holds up a 64-pound sturgeon that was caught and released using a gill net on Cross Lake the day before Thanksgiving. USGS photo

Dawn Dittman, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Cortland office, has reached a tentative conclusion about what local sturgeon in the state canal system do during the cold months.

They spend their winters in Cross Lake, she said.

Dittman and other USGS staff, who have been studying the migration of sturgeon throughout the canal system and elsewhere, were at the lake last week gill-netting fish. The biggest sturgeon captured weighed 78 pounds and was more than five feet long, she said.

“During the spring and summer, we’ve found some at Mud Lock at the northern end of Cayuga Lake and some on Oneida River,” Dittman said. “Throughout the late summer and fall they move. My best guess, looking at the tagged fish we’ve caught, is that they’re wintering in Cross Lake.”

Dittman said no one knew this would happen when the state Department of Environmental Conservation began reintroducing sturgeon into Oneida and Cayuga lakes in 1995. She said she’s gill-netted sturgeon at locations throughout the canal system. The biggest to date was an 80-pounder caught in August about a half-mile downstream from the Caughdenoy Dam.

Sturgeon were once abundant in the state, but commercial fishing, dam building and habitat loss decimated populations. It is currently illegal for anglers to target and catch sturgeon. Ones that are hooked accidentally should be released as soon as possible.

Cross Lake is on the border of Cayuga and Onondaga counties, between the villages of Jordan and Meridian.

Last week, Dittman and several other workers, who have special permission from the DEC to do their research, launched boats at the Cross Lake Yacht Club and set up 10 monofilament gill nets, with 10-inch holes. The nets are designed to capture but not hurt the fish.

“We set them up at various locations along the shoreline in 20 to 30 feet of water,” she said.

Captured sturgeon were measured for length, weight and girth, which is an indicator of overall health.

Sturgeon were tagged externally with a yellow tag, which contained a registration number and Dittman’s work phone number. Internal tags — small glass cylinders with copper coils stamped with serial numbers — were implanted using a needle.

In addition to the sturgeon, the USGS research team captured and released a 28½-inch walleye “weighing well over 10 pounds” and a sizeable tiger muskie.

“There are also lots of carp and quillbacks, which are big, flat silvery fish,” she said.

Dittman said the tagging and gill netting process is an inexpensive “low-tech way” to track the fish’s movements.

“I’d like to use radio tags,” she said. “That way, all you do is sit the boat with the proper equipment, hear the tags and follow the fish that way. I’m hoping to submit a grant proposal in January.”

718 mm Did not weigh, but over 11lb.

Marc Chalupnicki USGS Technician

790 mm Marc Chalupnicki USGS Technician

View the full article on The Syracuse Outdoors Blog