Yup, it's that time of year again... only this year the eggs were a month late getting to us. This morning the FedEx guy delivered 60,000 Atlantic Salmon eggs to the house. The new hatchery had been completed and just waiting for our little babys to show. My brother, myself and another club member took them to the new hatchery in McConnellsville, NY on Harden Furniture Company property. The eggs cartons arrived a little damaged. We probably lost 200 eggs in shipping. The survivors are safely sitting in their hatchery trays in 34 degree water. Now the daily task of picking out dead eggs and pampering the others. When they start to hatch... well then the work and daily grind begins big time. Fun time of year really.
Cool, I've raised salmon before for a school project, it's cool to see them hatch and develop and such.
that is amazing, i've never seen anything like that before! Good luck and keep us posted as they progress!
That depends on how many therms they get. Water temp really controls it. For example, last year we split our eggs and put some in our old hatchery and some in this site. This water is cold early... low 30s. Our other site was spring fed bubbling up out of the ground and was 43 or so year round.... even in the dead of winter. Therefore, the eggs in our old site got more therms early. They hatched 3 weeks before the ones in our new site. But as spring and early summer came to be the water in the new site warms considerably. When it was time to put the fish in the water, the ones that hatched 3 weeks later were bigger than the ones that were intially in the warmest water. Reason being, the water bubbling up from the spring stays in the mid 40s year round. We even rean a second line to that site from a pond trying to warm it up... but it was an 800 foot run and subject to algae if we dumped in too much. Where we are NOW.... the fish should start to hatch in 8 weeks maybe. Another factor is the stage at which we get them. We get them in the eyed up stage. That can be a week here or there also. We can't control that. We buy the eggs from a state hatchery in Maine when they're ready to ship. Our eggs cost us $2400. Our goal is to increase our size to 100,000 next year. We're a private group trying to reintroduce a species that was plentiful in this watershed but disappeared 100 years ago. The club has been doing it for 14 years or so. Started small with little numbers and have grown. They're now catching a few of our fish up to 27 inches. Many are caught by people that think they caught a rainbow. Several caught near my house this year in the 16-20 inch range. Here's a link to our website. Lots of radials to tour and see what we do. Not totally up to date but it will be shortly. http://www.fishcreeksalmon.org/ Here's a picture from today of my brother and I after we'd finished our work and put the covers on our tanks. You'll notice we're standing in and inch or 2 of running water. This site is under a spill way of Harden Furniture companies dam. We have a propane heater we can fire up when temps get to minus 15 or more. Our door is a couple sheets of painters plastic drop cloth.
David, While I applaud and appreciate the kind of effort it takes for such a thing to happen. Why Atlantics? I honestly don't know a single fisherman on the waters of Lake Ontario that has any interest in dedicating so much of what limited resources we have trying to restablish a fish that no one even wants to catch (compared to what we already have). Would really love your opinion as your club seems focused on them. Again HUGE thumbs up for such an amazing way to give back.
Why the Atlantics.... because they were once a native species that lived in this watershed. They are a fantastic fighting fish. They're high flyers when you hook one they almost always take to the air in a big way. I mean they'll be 5 or 6 feet in the air and do it again and again. In the early years the club, along with a biologist from Cornell Univ. experimented with several strains. Our current fish was the best of all we tried. As I said the Atlantics were native in our Fish Creek watershed. You can go back through history and find references to the Indians spearing them by the hundreds along fish creek. One old reference even said you could walk across the river on their backs they were so plentiful. Market fishing, nets, dams, old mills, civilization and lots of other man made problems wiped them out. We still have the damns to contend with.... but not as many as there once was. We stock above and below the 2 major dams the fish can't negotiate. We just started 2 years ago stocking above the big upper dam. We think that's really where our success will be. The upstream waters are undeveloped and still run clear and cold. The reservoir is deep, cold and full of bait fish for the young salmon when they make their way down stream after 2 years of living in small water. We should start to see some early returnees from the reservoir next fall. The reservoir itself gets little to no fishing as 9/11 has locked it down because it's Rome's water supply. No power boats, about 1 place to put in a canoe or something like that. You want Cohos or Chinoook go to Lake Ontario, Salmon River etc. We're just trying to get something back in the water that was once there in large numbers. We see evidence of some spawning activities but don't know if they're actually reproducing. The only way we could be sure would be to stop stocking for a couple years and then find fish in an age that couldn't possibly be something we stocked. At our old hatchery, the landowner had a couple spring fed ponds. We gave him a couple thousand fish every year. He has our fish in his ponds at 27-28 inches. We have netted a few, stripped their eggs and sperm and raised a few fish from them. In the beginning we were playing with very small numbers. Even at 60,000, after losses and all and then stocking, and losses to natures food chain.... we're not talking a lot of survivors. To be legal to keep they must be 15 inches in this watershed. I have seen and heard of other cases where people caught and killed 8-10 inch Atlantics thinking they were rainbows. Seems to always happen when the fishermen show up for the walleye run. That's when the salmon smolt and head downstream at 2 years of age to find a big body of water to hang out in for 2 years.
Cool. The battle raging over the money being wasted trying to get a couple Atlantics back into Ontario is getting ugly. No one wants them. The money being spent on them is not being used on fish people do want to chase (kings and coho)..........and they cost way more to raise. Top that all off with with literally scattered handfulls of them caught each year and fishermen are not happy at all with their resources being wasted. Sounds like you may have a better situation in your small water.
We've caught a couple Atlantics over the years while fishing for Steelhead on the Salmon River. They found evidence last year of naturally reproducing Atlantics in Salmon River. As far as the salmon on Lake Ontario.... I tasted one ONCE. They're a terrible eating fish to me. We go and catch a few every year.... but I throw everyone back. Don't want one near my kitchen. LOL I just as soon have a farm raised salmon from the grocery store... much better eating to me.
I don't keep or eat any salmon I catch. All go back to fight another day. I'll take the multiple 300 foot reel screaming runs of a king any day. Plenty of acrobatics and aerial shows from the steelies and smaller kings. Nothing like the raw strength of 30lb king..........especially on wire. This beast almost pulled my buddies arms off on my boat last year.
That photo of the salmon makes me miss the salmon fishing back in AK, I was just a little feller but I still managed to land my fair share of sockeyes, silvers, and chum salmon. Never got any kings on rod and reel though, just in subsistence nets. Hopefully i can make it back one day and get a few. Seeing the red sockeyes in the spawning streams is something I'll never forget though, just an amazing sight.
Ah yes... the salmon fishing with fly rods in Alaska was the ultimate fishing trip. We caught all the salmon along with mega rainbows, grayling, char etc. We didn't catch pinks because it was an off year. 9 of us broke 9 fly rods. Fortunately we'd all taken 3 or 4 a piece. LOL
Those are some awesome pictures, brings back a lot of fond memories. I have loads and loads of pictures but they're either all developed or are on those dang floppy discs, gonna have to get an external drive sometime. Where did you do your fishing, if I may ask?
We were on the Alagnak River west of Katmai National Park. Our outfitter was Trapper in his "Alagnak Wilderness Camp". It was in the wilderness... but it was great food and service. They knew the river and where to fish for whatever you wanted on a particular day. I understand he's lost his head guide and maybe number 2(his brother in law) also. Too bad, they were great. We fished up and down stream about 25 miles. The coolest day of fishing was when we took the 12 mile trip up river into Katmai and fished at the confluence of the rivers draining the park lakes. You fished one side of the point and you caught Kings and a few Chum. Fished the other side of the point and it was a LOT of rainbows and sockeyes. Wore me out that day.
Cool, I've been to Katmai a few times never fished there though, just checked out the bears at the park.
