Using a 35-year-old boat he picked up for $500 and a lot of priceless angling experience, Anthony Hyvarinen used both August 17th to catch one of the rarest of rare Ohio state record trophies: a new Pink Salmon place holder.
Making the catch even more peculiar is that no Great Lakes state has ever actually stocked Pink Salmon. What’s more, rarely are Great Lakes Pink Salmon caught by boat anglers. If they are targeted or caught, Pink Salmon almost always succumb to shore anglers.
Officially, Hyvarinen’s fish weighed 4.3 pounds, measured 22.44 inches and had a girth of 13 inches. The previous Pink Salmon record holder was a fish that weighed 3.06 pounds, measured 20 1/8 inches, and was taken by Andy Janoski from Conneaut Creek on September 24th, 2004.
Ohio’s state record fish program has always been maintained by the Outdoor Writers of Ohio’s State Record Fish Committee. Weight only is the criteria with length being given for reference purposes only.
Hyvarinen, of Lake County’s Madison Township, and his wife, Mary, traveled eights out into Lake Erie off Geneva-on-the-Lake to where the blue water drops to 74 feet deep. Attaching a purple-colored Michigan Stinger spoon to a leader attached to a number one Dipsy Diver screwed down to a number three setting, Hyvarinen sent the rig on its way.
Using a couple of other directional divers as well, Hyvarinen had them all placed between 150 and 175 feet back, which put the attached lures down to between 40 to 45 feet.
“We caught four or five steelhead before I caught the salmon and another four or five steelhead after. Plus walleye, of course,” Hyvarinen said.
“What’s funny was that we caught the steehead and salmon trolling against the waves and the walleye trolling with the waves.”
Typically, Hyvarinen – who is looking to acquire his charter captain’s license – lets other people aboard his bargain-basement boat reel in the fish. However, by doing so Hyvarinen has given up some trophies to the point that when he sets the hook on a fish if it “doesn’t feel right” he continues the battle on his own.
“And the salmon didn’t feel right,” Hyvarinen said. “When the fish broke the surface I could tell it wasn’t a steelhead and I thought maybe it was a Pink Salmon.”
In fact, said Hyvarinen said he wasn’t even aware that Ohio kept a record log on Pink Salmon That was, until he and his wife were headed back to shore. At that point Hyvarinen did an app search on his cell phone, saw what the existing Ohio state record for Pink Salmon was - including its length - and decided then and there he needed to speed things up.
“My poor boat has never hit the waves so hard like that coming back in,” Hyvarinen said with a chuckle.
Having the foresight to call the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s Fairport Harbor Fisheries Research Station ahead of time, Hyvarinen said the staff there alluded to the likelihood he had caught a Coho Salmon or possibly a steelhead.
The state fisheries biologists had reason to be doubtful, of course.
Pink Salmon have reproduced and dispersed throughout the Great Lakes since their accidental introduction in 1955 into Lake Superior. However, pink salmon, or “humpback salmon” as they are sometimes referred to, are more common in the upper Great Lakes and continue to be fairly rare in Lake Erie, said Scott Hale, the Wildlife Division’s administrator of fish management.
“We can’t readily verify whether the new Ohio state record Pink Salmon was a stray from another one of the Great Lakes or reproduced in a Lake Erie tributary,” Hale said
Hale said also the Great Lakes Acoustic Telemetry Observation System - an inter-agency program that uses acoustic tagging of a variety of species paired with an extensive network of hydrophone receivers deployed throughout the Great Lakes - continues “to teach us how extensively many species travel.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me if this fish originated from as far away as the northern reaches of Lake Superior,” Hale said.
And like Hyvarinen’s fish, the vast majority of Great Lakes Pink Salmon are caught by shore fishers, not boat anglers, says the Michigan DNR in a fact sheet on the subject.
“Pink Salmon are rarely caught by boat anglers in the Great Lakes; most that are taken are caught while ascending streams along Lake Superior and northern areas of lakes Huron and Michigan. Streamers and nymphs account for the bulk of the ‘pinks’ taken in the St. Marys rapids, the most outstanding Pink Salmon fishery this side of Alaska,” says a Michigan DNR fact sheet.
Regardless, Hyvarinen has all ready begun the process of ensuring that his catch will be around for a long time for he and his family to enjoy – and for other anglers to only wonder “what if.”
Hyvarinen said he has given his Pink Salmon to a taxidermist in Columbus who specializes in trophy fish mounts.
“Even if it wasn’t a state record I’d still would get it mounted,” Hyvarinen said. “Hopefully, I can catch the new state record walleye some day, too.”
By Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
JFrischk4@gmail.com
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