So many Cohos

[rolmops]

Is it just me or is everybody catching these unusual amounts of Coho salmon?

In a week out of Olcott we only got one king, not a very big one at that, but cohos and atlantics are all over the place.

What is different this year? Did somebody accidently stock cohos instead of kings , or did a coho stocking have an absolutely terrific survival rate? And never mind the amount of atlantics. We never got that many in one week.

What''s going on?

[skinny420]

How deep you fishing? 

[rolmops]

All across the water. We try wherever our finders show fish and the temperature is above 39 degrees. We do not usually target laketrout. although they too are found high up in the column whenever there is a bait pod.

[whaler1]

34 minutes ago, skinny420 said:

How deep you fishing? 

Coho will be in the top 40 of the water column. Fast troll, 3 mph ish. Like red, orange, chartreuse. Small spinny with fly behind or standard size spoons will pull fish. 
cold clear water sucks. Sometimes warmer water is in tighter. Other times it’s offshore. Find better temps, usually pull better fish. 

[Yankee Troller]

The DEC stocks X amount every year. The variable here is naturals. Clearly a bumper crop of natural Coho in the system. In a season with tough King fishing it is a welcomed fishery. I've been asking for this fishery for years, but all I ever hear is how expensive it is to raise Coho in the hatchery. The state and feds have no issues pissing away money on Atlantic programs that very few people ever benefit from though. 

[rolmops]

12 minutes ago, Yankee Troller said:

The DEC stocks X amount every year. The variable here is naturals. Clearly a bumper crop of natural Coho in the system. In a season with tough King fishing it is a welcomed fishery. I've been asking for this fishery for years, but all I ever hear is how expensive it is to raise Coho in the hatchery. The state and feds have no issues pissing away money on Atlantic programs that very few people ever benefit from though. 

This season though , these 30 +inch Atlantics are a very welcome catch.Even in this cold water, their acrobatics lighten up my day. I must admit though that they do not taste very different from the ones at Wegmans.

[Yankee Troller]

25 minutes ago, rolmops said:

This season though , these 30 +inch Atlantics are a very welcome catch.Even in this cold water, their acrobatics lighten up my day. I must admit though that they do not taste very different from the ones at Wegmans.

 

Everyone will take what they get. However, Atlantics are not targetable. Coho are easily targetable. Chinook are targetable. Heck, every trout species is targetable. If you can't target a species it's not bringing in anglers to chase them. It's very easy. ROI on Atlantic's is the worst out of every species swimming in Lake Ontario. 

[David Podlesnik]

On 5/24/2025 at 9:10 PM, rolmops said:

Is it just me or is everybody catching these unusual amounts of Coho salmon?

In a week out of Olcott we only got one king, not a very big one at that, but cohos and atlantics are all over the place.

What is different this year? Did somebody accidently stock cohos instead of kings , or did a coho stocking have an absolutely terrific survival rate? And never mind the amount of atlantics. We never got that many in one week.

What''s going on?

If it is natural coho reproduction then what tribes are contributing. And why has it never happened before. And why would the coho's be so successful and, at least it appears, not the kings.  They both spawn at the same time with both needing the dame conditions. And your observation of a lot of coho's and few Kings makes sense to me. If the Kings never show up this year then your hypothesis might have to be seriously considered.

[Yankee Troller]

3 minutes ago, David Podlesnik said:

If it is natural coho reproduction then what tribes are contributing. And why has it never happened before. And why would the coho's be so successful and, at least it appears, not the kings.  They both spawn at the same time with both needing the dame conditions. And your observation of a lot of coho's and few Kings makes sense to me. If the Kings never show up this year then your hypothesis might have to be seriously considered.

 

We had a Coho boom 5-6 years ago. The whole lake enjoyed it. Again, the DEC hasn't changed stocking numbers for decades on these. If anything, they fail to reach target numbers due to poor eye up in the hatchery.

 

From the data we have the tribs on the North shore and the Salmon River are our best tribs to support natural reproduction. After a 9yr tagging study we settled on 50% of the Kings caught are naturals. If we stock 1,000,000 Kings another 1,000,000 are naturally reproduced. Of those 1,000,000 naturals 500,000 come from north shore tribs. Of the other 500,000 naturals 250,000 come from the Salmon River.

[Gill-T]

2 hours ago, Yankee Troller said:

 

Everyone will take what they get. However, Atlantics are not targetable. Coho are easily targetable. Chinook are targetable. Heck, every trout species is targetable. If you can't target a species it's not bringing in anglers to chase them. It's very easy. ROI on Atlantic's is the worst out of every species swimming in Lake Ontario. 

wrong !  There are those five guys that target them in the Salmon River 😂 

[David Podlesnik]

3 hours ago, Yankee Troller said:

 

We had a Coho boom 5-6 years ago. The whole lake enjoyed it. Again, the DEC hasn't changed stocking numbers for decades on these. If anything, they fail to reach target numbers due to poor eye up in the hatchery.

 

From the data we have the tribs on the North shore and the Salmon River are our best tribs to support natural reproduction. After a 9yr tagging study we settled on 50% of the Kings caught are naturals. If we stock 1,000,000 Kings another 1,000,000 are naturally reproduced. Of those 1,000,000 naturals 500,000 come from north shore tribs. Of the other 500,000 naturals 250,000 come from the Salmon River.

I hear what your saying. And a robust Coho spawn is great. But I don't remember it being this disproportionate to the number of Kings. If the Kings are still out there it should be as good if not better than last year with some really big fish. Tight lines.

[Yankee Troller]

35 minutes ago, David Podlesnik said:

I hear what your saying. And a robust Coho spawn is great. But I don't remember it being this disproportionate to the number of Kings. If the Kings are still out there it should be as good if not better than last year with some really big fish. Tight lines.

 

That Salmon fishing we saw the last two years was another example of what naturals can do to the fishery. We saw those fish two seasons ago as 6-12lb fish (2yr old's), and last year as 3yr old's. 99% of our Salmon mature at 2 and 3 years old. Last year was it for that crop of fish we saw.

 

Now, as far as the poor King fishing this season it's early to judge. We've had an enormous amount of East winds and cool temps that followed a cold Winter. Let it play itself out.

[David Podlesnik]

Thanks Richard, always appreciate your candor and knowledge. I've delayed coming up this year do to the conditions, but will be up next week Lord willing and hope those Kings are ready, fat and furious. I see a 28# won the Spring derby in St. Catherine's. Thanks

[Yankee Troller]

4 minutes ago, David Podlesnik said:

Thanks Richard, always appreciate your candor and knowledge. I've delayed coming up this year do to the conditions, but will be up next week Lord willing and hope those Kings are ready, fat and furious. I see a 28# won the Spring derby in St. Catherine's. Thanks

 

Good luck when you get out. Fingers crossed the Kings start committing mass violence to our spreads.

[seeyawader]

On 5/28/2025 at 3:56 PM, David Podlesnik said:

Thanks Richard, always appreciate your candor and knowledge. I've delayed coming up this year do to the conditions, but will be up next week Lord willing and hope those Kings are ready, fat and furious. I see a 28# won the Spring derby in St. Catherine's. Thanks

What conditions you say! So it's not just me that the waves are 1 foot or less during the week and 5 foot on the weekends? I've cancelled more trips this year than!

[lumberjohn]

You mean like this up coming week? This weekend is washed out and blown off. Staring Monday a week of nice weather, south winds and calm seas. Sheesh.

[Kingme2Go]

DEC switched Coho to all yearlings several years ago so  this is one recent change. Prior to that, some fall fingerlings were stocked but DEC study showed much higher survival with yearlings..Also showed around 40%of Coho were wild . Found the study here in section 3. https://extapps.dec.ny.gov/docs/fish_marine_pdf/2021ontarioreport.pdf

[RH93]

We caught a bunch of coho August/September last year on the eastern end. For me I was catching double the coho compared to kings. 

[lachsforelle]

Kinda related to the topic...do most agree that Cohos are better table fare than Kings?

 

[seeyawader]

Throw a 25 inch king and a 25 inch coho on my dinner plate and they both taste the same and great to me,,but I like seasoning

[Yankee Troller]

4 hours ago, lachsforelle said:

Kinda related to the topic...do most agree that Cohos are better table fare than Kings?

 

 

Fun Fact: I've never put anything that lived in water in my mouth, so I'm not a good source of info for this question.

[GAMBLER]

4 hours ago, lachsforelle said:

Kinda related to the topic...do most agree that Cohos are better table fare than Kings?

 

Depending on how you care for them or cook them they are a touch better.  

[luckystrike]

3 hours ago, GAMBLER said:

Depending on how you care for them or cook them they are a touch better.  

I agree, if they are handled properly ie put on ice ASAP, well packaged and not left more than 6 months or maximum one year in the freezer I can't tell any difference. That's been my experience fishing the North shore for 30 years. They are both great!

[fcboats]

The CDN MNR is still stocking these....

[luckystrike]

9 hours ago, fcboats said:

The CDN MNR is still stocking these....

Good to hear CDN MNR are still stocking Coho. I only fish Lake O north shore July and August 8 to 10 days per year and I don't catch very many Coho...maybe 1 to 10 chinook.