Update on this year’s Salmon Stocking:

Article from LGA June/July 2007 Newsletter
By Samantha Zuhlke, LGA Intern

This spring, the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) stocked 34,000 landlocked salmon in Lake George with help from volunteer members of the Lake George Fishing Alliance (LGFA). On May 22nd, 17,000 fish were stocked in the South Basin off of Green Island. Another 17,000 were stocked the following day out of Hague in the North Basin. In addition to these 34,000, 3,000 salmon will be stocked in the fall. This delay allows the “fall” fish to grow to a larger size, giving them a better chance of survival than their smaller spring counterparts. Spring stocked salmon are generally seven inches in length, while salmon stocked in the fall average nine inches.

Landlocked salmon are Atlantic salmon that live in freshwater their entire lives. These salmon are not native to Lake George. However, they have been stocked in the lake as early as the late 1800’s. Recently, the salmon in Lake George have not been doing as well as in years past. There are several theories to explain this trend. One idea behind the decline in population is that the populations of what the salmon eat have decreased. Another argument is that the genetics of the stocked fish are not very good anymore due to inbreeding of the brood stock over time at the hatchery. However, the problem might actually be in the methods behind the actual salmon stocking.

Luckily for Lake George, the NYS DEC and the Lake George Fishing Alliance have taken steps toward fixing these possible problems. Salmon will eat insects and large zooplankton. However, they prefer to forage for smaller fish such as smelt. It is believed that smelt were introduced to the Lake George area in 1971 by individuals after the decimation of the fish population due to the spraying of the chemical pesticide DDT in 1950’s and early 1960’s. In the past decade or so, the smelt population of Lake George had been on the decline. However, luckily for the salmon, the smelt population has been on the rise over the past two years prompting the NYS DEC to state in their 2006 Angler Diary Cooperator Summary that they do not believe a decrease in smelt is the reason why the salmon are doing poorly. Another possible theory is the idea of genetics. In order to combat this idea, the NYS DEC has begun to acquire a new genetic strain of brood stock from Sebago Lake in Maine. This new strain of salmon is expected to start showing up in Lake George in four to five years. Finally, an idea exists that suggests that the salmon population is decreasing due to the technique used to stock salmon.

In past years, the salmon have been released at only two locations, causing a feeding frenzy where the lake trout and bass fed upon the newly released salmon. In order to prevent this mass predation, members of the Lake George Fishing Alliance volunteered their time and boats to take the fish out in trashcans and dump them in multiple locations all over the lake. The Lake George Fishing Alliance is also looking into other ways to improve the salmon fishery.

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