Chautauqua Muskallunge

Esox ohiensis Kirtland

Images coming soon.

The muskallunge of Chautauqua Lake and the Ohio basin differs greatly in appearance from that of the Great Lakes. As the 2 forms are not known to intergrade and as their habitats are entirely distinct, they are best regarded as distinct species. The Chautauqua muskallunge is known chiefly from Chautauqua Lake, though specimens have been reported from a few other places in the Ohio Valley, viz: the Mahoning River, the Ohio at Evansville, and Conneaut Lake. In the early part of the last century when Rafinesque wrote about the fishes of the Ohio River, the muskallunge was apparently more frequently seen in that river than now.

In Chautauqua Lake it is by all odds the most important fish, whether considered from the standpoint of the commercial fisherman or that of the angler. For more than 10 years the State of New York has been propagating this species with notable success, the total number of fry hatched from 1890 to 1898 being 18,325,000. These fry have been planted chiefly in Chautauqua Lake, but large and frequent plants have been made in other waters of New York. Many have been put in Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River, and now the angler among the Thousand Islands may expect to find there not only the Great Lakes muskallunge but this species as well.

As a game-fish the Chautauqua muskallunge occupies a high rank, due, doubtless, more to its immense size than to actual fighting power. It is usually taken by trolling either with the spoon or a good-sized minnow. In September the spoon is used; later the minnow becomes more popular.

Writing of this species in 1818 Rafinesque said: "It is one of the best fishes in the Ohio; its flesh is very delicate and divides easily, as in salmon, into large plates as white as snow. It is called salmon pike, white pike, white jack, or white pickerel, and Picareau blanc by the Missourians. It reaches a length of 5 feet." Dr. Kirtland says that "epicures consider it one of the best fishes of the West,"and another affirms that "as a food-fish there is nothing superior to it. It ranks with the salmon and speckled trout, and surpasses the black and striped bass. The meat is almost as white as snow, fine-grained, nicely laminated, and the flavour is perfect." The quality of the flesh improves upon keeping, and is very much more juicy and of better flavour after a day or 2 on ice.

Colour, nearly uniform dark olive-green on back; upper 2/3 of side rich brassy green with some metallic green; about 25 faint narrow darker vertical bars extending somewhat below lateral line; lower third of side paler and more brassy, the vertical bars widening into broad darkish blotches, these most greenish on posterior third of body; top of head very dark green; scaled part of head brassy-green, lower part of side of head less brassy and less greenish, it being more silvery, especially on lower part of opercle; rim of lower jaw dusky greenish, rest of lower jaw and throat white; fins dark olive, with numerous darker greenish spots; iris grayish brown. The crossbars are rather broad and do not break up distinctly into diffuse spots, and the fin spots are greenish rather than black. The general colour is a rich greenish brassy with very indistinct darker green crossbars.