Syracuse.com - Cicero angler lands 27-inch Atlantic salmon in Oneida Lake

[HuntingNY-News]

It's the biggest fish of this species taken on this lake in recent memory. It's also confirmation that a 17- year-long effort of stocking this once-native fish in a tributary of the lake by a private club of volunteers is taking hold.

It's a good fishing story -- and a noteworthy success story as well.

Jerry Lougnot, of Cicero, this May caught and released a 27-inch Atlantic salmon on Oneida Lake while fishing for walleyes. He was fishing at the time with fishing buddy Jerry Northrup and trolling with a willow leaf, glow green spinner, behind a two-ounce sinker. He caught the fish just west of Dakin Shoal in about 25 feet of water.

Lougnot, who is a member of the Eastern Lake Ontario Salmon and Trout Association (ELOSTA), said as soon as he hooked the fish he had no doubt. He said he knew by the way his rod was bending and not pulsating, the fish's color and length and by the way "the fish came flying out of the water like a torpedo 60 feet behind the boat" that it was an Atlantic.

"We landed the fish, removed the hook, taped it out, took a picture of it with my old camera - and then it was immediately released," he said. "To me, that was like getting a 28-inch walleye out of Oneida Lake. It's a trophy."

Many anglers confuse Atlantic salmon with brown trout. Distinguishing features of Atlantic salmon are the "X" markings on their sides, the short face of the fish and the length of the mouth. Atlantics have a smaller mouth than brown trout, and they also have a forked tail and a narrowing on the body just before the tail.

Atlantic salmon were once plentiful in Oneida Lake, spawning each year on the lake's tributaries - particularly on Fish Creek at the lake's eastern end. Early settlers harvested them with pitch forks during their annual spawning run. Eventually, they disappeared in the lake with the advent of industrialization, dams, pollution and deforestation.

In 1997, the Atlantic Salmon Fish Creek Club began an effort to restore the native species by starting a small hatchery. The club purchased eggs from Maine, raised the fish to small fingerlings and then releasing them into Fish Creek. The group, which in 2003 changed its name to the Fish Creek Atlantic Salmon Club, has been raising and releasing the fingerlings ever since in Fish Creek.

Jim Lawler, of Camden, the club's president, said although others have reported catching good-sized Atlantics out of Oneida Lake, this is the "only one that's been verified as being that big."

"We've been stocking these fish for 17 years. It's probably a 6 ½ or 7-year-old fish," he said. "And for it to live that long shows they're taking hold and doing good. When we first put it in, it was about two inches long on the east branch of Fish Creek, where we stock most of the fish.

"They stay in the creek for a couple of years, until they're about 6 inches long when they smolt and they go downstream looking for the ocean," he added. " For them, Oneida Lake is the ocean. They'll stay there for a couple more years until they're about 18 inches long, and then they come back and spawn (in Fish Creek), and go back and forth several times."

This year, the club stocked 45,000 fingerlings into Fish Creek, Lawler said.

"We usually put about 30,000 fish, but we got some additional fish from Vermont from the hatchery on Lake Champlain," Lawler said.

To read more about Atlantic and other salmon in the state's waters, see the DEC website.

View the full article on The Syracuse Outdoors Blog