44 Conservation Department 



lakes. We believe they entered by means of the canal system 

 which formerly extended to Keuka lake and still enters Cayuga 

 and Seneca. I can find no record of their having been introduced 

 intentionally and know from residents of the section that they 

 have been present in all three lakes for at least fifty years. They 

 are evidently not the remnant of a post-glacial invasion from the 

 sea, nor migrants by way of the Oswego river before the dams were 

 constructed, for they certainly should have entered Canandaigua 

 and Owasco lakes with equal ease. Their appearance in Keuka 

 lake is placed by residents of that section at about sixty years ago. 



The smelt has been introduced in recent years into Canandaigua, 

 Owasco and Skaneateles lakes. We took them only in Canan- 

 daigua and Owasco but we learned from fishermen that mat re 

 specimens have been found in Skaneateles. They appeared in great 

 numbers in Sucker creek near the foot of Owasco early last spring, 

 evidently to spawn, and soon after the spawning season died in 

 large numbers along the shore of the lake. They are a wide- 

 ranging fish like the alewif e and two were taken in trout nets at the 

 depth of 100 feet. 



The cisco inhabits every one of the seven lakes surveyed, but it 

 has been planted recently in the eastern-most lakes and in Otisco, 

 at least, we believe that all ciscoes are from stock planted by the 

 Conservation Department. This fish, however, is certainly a native 

 of Canandaigua, Seneca, Keuka, Cayuga and Skaneateles lakes. 

 In Canandaigua lake there is a dwarf race, 4 to 7 inches in length, 

 a somewhat larger one in Keuka lake and, in former years at 

 least, a race which grew to a weight of four pounds in Seneca and 

 Cayuga. This, like the alewif e and smelt, is a wide-ranging fish 

 in the lakes and is taken in both deep and shallow water. Great 

 schools of ciscoes are occasionally seen early in the season near 

 shore swimming up or down the lake, but we did not succeed in 

 catching them in large numbers in any of the lakes. 



The whitefish is most abundant in Canandaigua and apparently 

 always has been. In Keuka, Seneca and Skaneateles there are 

 still whitefish but in much smaller numbers than formerly, accord- 

 ing to the local fishermen. It is mostly a bottom feeder and an 

 inhabitant of the cool, deep water. Early in the season, before 

 the shallows have become warm, they are taken on set lines in 

 water fifteen to twenty feet in depth, and late in the fall they 

 again invade the bars and shallows to spawn. 



Landlocked salmon have been introduced into Skaneateles lake 

 on two or three occasions and the local sportsmen feel confident 

 that this is the fish they are now taking in some numbers both by 

 hand-trolling and by rod and reel. We have thus far been unable 

 to secure a specimen of this salmon from the Finger lakes. One 

 secured for us by Skaneateles fishermen, and supposed by them to 

 be a salmon was a steelhead trout.* 



The brown trout has been successfully introduced in the inlets 



* Loc. cit. page 9G. 



