Hail to the salmon kings

Chinook salmon, chinooks, chinnys, kings, and even tyees…name them what you’ll. This Pacific-roaming salmon isn’t native to the Nice Lakes but dominates the fishing calendar of many Ontario anglers. The primary push of chinook stocking came about within the late Nineteen Sixties to assist management the inhabitants of alewife, a baitfish species that crept into Lake Ontario and unfold.

Within the absence of native predators, salmon not solely helped management alewives however created a world-class leisure fishery. Whereas it has had its fair proportion of challenges, it stays robust. After lake sturgeon (largely closed to angling), lake trout, and muskie, chinooks are the biggest Ontario sportfish you may catch. The present provincial document is a46.38-pound specimen from Lake Ontario. 

Sure, these different species have bigger provincial information, however should you’re trying to realistically and persistently catch a fish within the excessive teenagers to twenty kilos and higher, there’s no higher possibility than the mighty king.

Principal salmon motion

Though you may technically goal salmon all yr lengthy, foremost lake motion normally begins within the spring as temperatures heat, earlier than fish transfer to the Nice Lakes’ foremost basins. August by means of October is prime time as fish attain their peak weight and transfer nearer to shore as they return to tributaries to spawn. This supplies simpler entry for each boat and shore anglers. I’ve fished for chinook since my early teenagers, and these giants have helped me respect what it means to persistently struggle massive fish. We will take with no consideration what alternatives different anglers all over the world don’t have.

I had the good pleasure of getting out with good good friend Jason Forde and Canada’s weatherman Chris Murphy on Lake Ontario for some salmon motion earlier this season. We caught fish and had a whole lot of enjoyable doing it. You may learn extra about Chris in his profile piece by Meghan Sutherland, “The weatherman can,” and you may glean a few years of insights on fishing for them from Bob McGary in his characteristic, “Comply with the kings.” 

Initially printed within the August 2023 problem of Ontario OUT of DOORS

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