Syracuse.com - TV mini-series highlighting annual salmon run in Pulaski premieres Tuesday

[HuntingNY-News]

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For the village of Pulaski, it’s become an economic necessity.

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<p>To humans, it seems like a cruel trick of nature. For the salmon, it’s just the fulfillment of their life cycle.</p>

<p>For the village of Pulaski, it’s become an economic necessity.</p>

<p>It’s the annual fall spawning run of the Chinook and coho salmon from Lake Ontario up the Salmon River. The event, and the hordes of anglers it brings each year is the subject of a new, TV mini-series, “The Run,” which premieres Tuesday on the Sportsman Channel.</p>

<p>“This community depends on the run. These four weeks can either make or break the whole year for many businesses,” said Patrick Donnelly, head of Team E Media, the Weedsport-based, production company that made the series.</p>

<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/oOgsfqjJlzk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>

<p>“There’s a lot of different reality type shows out there. Heck, there’s three different noodling shows (catching catfish with your bare hands) airing,” he said. “But there hasn’t been a salmon show, one that’s based around the economic involvement of the characters.”</p>

<p>For Team E Media, this is its fourth outdoors-related show. Others include Team E Outdoors, which airs on Time Warner Sports; “Hardcore Hunter,” a big-game show out of Canada that airs on the Pursuit Channel and “Wild Life,” another hunting-related show on the Pursuit Channel Show based in Texas.</p>

<p>Donnelly, the son of DIRT auto racing mogul Glenn Donnelly, said he was sold on doing a show on the Salmon River scene by Capt. Rick Miick,a local drift boat captain.<br /> <br />“He introduced me to the Lake Ontario, Salmon River scenes about three years ago. I just kept going up there – particularly during the off-season,” Donnelly said. “I got to realize what that annual run really meant to the people up there. If that fishery every says, ‘We’re stopping the fish train,’ Pulaski would be a ghost town. It’s as simple as that.”</p>

<p>After doing some initial research, Donnelly got the support of village officials; the Oswego County Tourism Department; former state Sen. Doug Barclay, who lives in Pulaski and owns the Douglaston Run fishing area and more than 30 businesses in the community.<br />Filming started last spring and just finished up recently, Donnelly said.</p>

<div id="asset-12638599" class="entry_widget_large entry_widget_right"><span class="adv-photo-large"><img src="/static/common/img/blank.gif" class="lazy" data-original="http://media.syracuse.com/outdoors/photo/12638599-large.jpg" class="adv-photo" alt="100808 Douglaston Run 7.JPG" /><span class="photo-data"><span class="caption"> A successful angler, his guide and the catch on the Douglaston Run, a private, for-pay fishing area on on the lower end of the Salmon River.</span><span class="byline">Joseph Glenn</span></span></span> </div>

<p>The min-series is broken down into four, half-hour shows. The first show sets the stage by giving viewers insight into the life of Lake Ontario Charter boat captains.</p>

<p>“The second show is when we really get busy. It shows the fish are just in the river up to the first bridge. We pick up the drift boats fishing at night, and introduce the cleaning stations and tackle shops,” Donnelly said. “It takes you to the DEC fish hatchery for some education about how the salmon are reared and stocked.</p>

<p>"Finally, it highlights last fall’s drought, which kept the water low in the river.<br />“For everyone else, last year was a record year. The drift boat guys, though, lost their butts. They had to bring their clients to shore and fish from the banks.”</p>

<p>The third show highlights Columbus Day weekend.</p>

<div id="asset-12638609" class="entry_widget_large entry_widget_right"><span class="adv-photo-large"><img src="/static/common/img/blank.gif" class="lazy" data-original="http://media.syracuse.com/outdoors/photo/12638609-large.jpg" class="adv-photo" alt="2012-09018-gw-salmon104.JPG" /><span class="photo-data"><span class="caption">Columbus Day weekend is when all hell breaks loose with hordes of anglers on the Salmon River, said Patrick Donnelly.</span><span class="byline">Gary Walts | [email protected]</span></span></span> </div>

<p>“That’s the height of the run, when all hell breaks loose,” Donnelly said. ‘Stores are running out of stuff. Tackle shops are drained. People are exhausted, but they dig down deep and continue going for it.”</p>

<p>The final show wraps up the end of the salmon season and touches on the steelhead fishing scene that comes afterward.</p>

<p>Donnelly said the key any successful outdoors reality show is characters and story lines. Following an extensive interview process, Donnelly he settled on following three Lake Ontario guides; three drift boat guides; three operators of fish cleaning stations – along with short glimpses of those who run and work in the local restaurants and hotels/motels.</p>

<p>“We have one drift boat captain who a while back found a burnt doll’s head drifting in the river and brought it into his boat,” Donnelly said. “That day he landed a ridiculous 18-20 fish. He calls in ‘the evil doll head.’ Today, he won’t let that doll’s head leave his boat.”</p>

<p>And then there’s the fish cleaning and fish smoking stations. During the height of the run, they’re open 24-7.</p>

<p>“We talk to one guy who does 400-600 fish a day,” Donnelly said. “The money is here for just a short time and you have to snatch it.”</p>

<p>In the show, Donnelly highlights the work of the state Department of Environment Conservation, which annually stocks about 1.7 million chinook salmon and 250,000 coho salmon in Lake Ontario and its tributaries, according to the DEC website.</p>

<p> “Without the DEC, those fish wouldn’t be in the lake. A lot of people don’t give them the credit that’s due,” he said.</p>

<p>While the show is about the salmon run, the real story is that of the people who rea p its benefits – the fishing guides, the cleaning station operations. Donnelly talked about a school teacher who made $1,200 in tips as a bartender one Monday night during a football game – money she said will help pay her student loans. He also mentioned single mom who works a second job in a restaurant, dedicating the money she earns during the run to buy her kids Christmas gifts.</p>

<p>“It isn’t about life or death,” he said. “It’s just whether people are going to have enough money to pay their bills.”<br /><div id="asset-12638561" class="entry_widget_large entry_widget_right"><span class="adv-photo-large"><img src="/static/common/img/blank.gif" class="lazy" data-original="http://media.syracuse.com/outdoors/photo/12638561-large.jpg" class="adv-photo" alt="TheRunLogo.JPG" /><span class="photo-data"><span class="caption"></span><span class="byline"></span></span></span> </div></p>

<p><strong>TO SEE “THE RUN”</strong></p>

<p>The four-part, mini-series will run three times a week on the Sportsman Channel, at 10:30 a.m. Saturdays, 2:30 a.m. Tuesdays and 1 p.m. Thursdays and 10:30 a.m. Saturdays. Each show will be a half hour long. The series kicks off this week with the Tuesday show.</p>

<p><strong>For more:</strong> See <a href="http://theruntvseries.com">the show’s website</a>.</p>

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