Lake Champlain United - Forums

I want to express my sincere gratitude to all the salmon anglers who have generously helped our research team by providing fish for our diet sample collection efforts. Your contributions are making our study possible!

Stats from today:
-Total fish collected: 7 (lengths ranging 15-22")
-Male/female ratio: 4 males, 3 females
-Most fish (6 out of 7) had a left ventral fin clip
-While most stomachs were empty (4/7), we were able to collect belly flap samples from all fish for fatty acid analysis - this will allow us to determine what the fish were eating regardless of stomach contents!

Collection Goals:
-30 total samples for April
-15 from the Main Lake (we will start tomorrow)
-8 additional from the Inland Sea (we collected 7 today)

Where to Find Me Next:
I will be at the Converse Bay Boat Ramp around 10 AM tomorrow (Sunday 4/13) to collect diet samples from the Main Lake. If you catch any salmon and are willing to contribute to our research, please stop by!

Thank you all for your continued support and assistance with this important research. Your contributions are advancing our understanding of Atlantic Salmon in Lake Champlain!

Graham

Nice Summary Graham! The Fatty Acid analysis of this study is really interesting! Graham mentioned to us they can go back 3 months of the diet of the fish. This part is why it's important to keep these fish alive in our live well. He only has 30 minutes after the fish die to get this sample for this Fatty Acid analysis.

We arrived 7 am at Apple launch with 11 salmon boat trailers already in the parking lot dry from an earlier launch. We were on Ric's boat with Chris aboard till 1:15 pm. today (A shoot out time window of 6 hours) Everyone is fishing Keelers where the warmer water is this time of year. We saw temps steady 39F some up to 41F. It was very slow today but we managed a 3 for 3 effort with a 16" / 18" / 19" salmon. The 16" stomach was empty and the 18" had alewife and the 19" had 20 baby 1.5" smelt. That was pretty cool! Graham had fresh salmon for dinner tonight!

Good luck today Graham as we will be fishing south today out of Converse! 7am arrival off at Noon. Mistress said he could be out today down there. A great start yesterday lets keep the ball rolling! Live fish please!

Blue Moon has been our go to now for 5-6 years. It has been hot for a week now for us as the water is approaching 40F plus as we transition from sticks to spoons!