LAKE TROUT BREEDING HABITS 



73 



30 40 



TEMPERATURE 



50 60 70 



IN DEGREES FAHRENHEIT 



Figure 6. — Temperature stratification of Otsego Lake 

 associated with different stages of larval development of 

 lake trout. 



(Several hauls of the trawl in the vicinity of the 

 spawning area on April 27 and May 17 produced 

 no fry.) Both eggs and fry were well buried in the 

 stones. The eggs were taken with a Petersen 

 dredge, and only after the surface stones were 

 removed could they be found. The fry were all 

 taken with a trawl fitted with a heavy weight in 

 front which turned over the stones. On June 2, 

 1941, 18 tows of the trawl over the spawning area 

 and in the vicinity down to depth of 60 feet failed 

 to produce any young lake trout. They had 

 definitely moved from the spawning area and the 

 habitat of the earhest feeding stages was still 

 unknown. 



Comparison of the development of wild fry 

 which were captured and of those grown in a hatch- 

 ery indicates that the time of hatching in Otsego 

 Lake in 1941 was about April 15, and the fry 

 left the shelter of the spawning area May 20 to 25. 



In Seneca Lake, where the lake trout spawn 

 during late September and October, a single ad- 

 vanced fry was captured in about 130 feet of water 

 off Peach Orchard Point on April 2, 1940. This 

 fry was considerably more advanced than a 



hatchery fry 2 months old. This would place 

 the time of hatching in late January and indicate 

 an incubation period of approximately 4 months. 

 Consideration of the type of bottom and the 

 kinds of invertebrate inhabitants (table 6) of the 

 lake-trout spawning area in Otsego Lake empha- 

 sizes the striking resemblance of this area to a 

 typical trout-stream environment. Clean gravel 

 and rubble bottom inhabited by stonefly and may- 

 fly nymphs and caddis larvae ordinarily would be 

 associated with a stream instead of a lake. Cer- 

 tainly it seems that lake-trout fry and fingerlings 

 would fare best under conditions similar to those 

 selected by the young of other trout. 



This trout-stream-like environment in Otsego 

 Lake gave me high hopes of capturing the early 

 fingerling stages in the vicinity. But all efforts, 

 including those with minnow traps, trawl, and 

 shore seine, were unsuccessful. No helpful clues 

 were found in the literature, for lake-trout finger- 

 lings have been reported only from shoal water 

 and small tributaries. Kendall and Goldsborough 

 (1908) captured several lake trout, 1.87 to 2.37 

 inches long, in small spring tributaries of First 

 Connecticut Lake on July 16 and 18 and August 

 10. Neave and Bajkov (1929) reported taking 

 10 lake trout, 32 to 45 mm. long, with a hand net 

 in a small inlet creek at Pyramid Lake, Nev. 

 Miller and Kennedy (1948) noted that fry, and 

 1-, 2-, and 3-year-old lake trout were found in 

 shallow water along a bouldery shoreline of Great 

 Bear Lake, Mackenzie, Canada. Lake-trout fin- 

 gerlings are not found in such habitats in the 

 summer in New York. The biological survey of 

 the New York State Conservation Department 

 captured none in extensive seining of the shores 

 of the Adirondack lakes and streams, many of 

 which were adjacent to lake-trout waters. There 

 seems to be little doubt that in New York they live 

 in the deeper waters of the lakes in the summer 

 and probably seek rocky bottom. 



JUVENILE LAKE TROUT OF KEUKA LAKE 



Intermittently from April 18 to September 16, 

 1940, effort was made to capture fingerling and 

 juvenile stages of lake trout in Keuka Lake. 

 Their capture was attempted with gill nets, trawls, 

 set lines, and minnow traps. A number of 100- 

 foot sections of gill nets of %-inch to 1 J^inch bars 

 were set for an aggregate of 67 nights at depths of 



