June 20, 2019

Adirondack Adventure (Summer Suckers!)

Alex and I had time for one final adventure before I was going to be shipped back up to Nunavut for another month of great work. We decided on heading south to the Adirondacks for some hiking and a chance at a pretty rare fish. The weekend started with an early morning and the 5 hour drive to the mountains. We found a couple geocaches on the way and visited one of the 12 abandoned missile silos in the area. We also went for a short 1 hour hike to the top of Rocky Mountain and took some quick pictures before heading down and driving out to a very special lake...



We had to make quite a trek to get to said lake, the hike in was only 0.75 miles but we had to do 20-25 miles of dirt road with my car to get to that point. The road was in great condition except for the last few kilometers where even I was surprised by my car's abilities.



Enough beating around the bush, the reason we were heading to this remote lake was for a rare species of Sucker, the Summer Sucker! They can only be found in a handful of lakes high in the Adirondacks and have adapted to their mountain habitat. Namely, they spawn much later than regular White Suckers, in early summer believe it or not lol. Apparently, they have diverged enough to become their own species, the only species of fish endemic to NY.

After finally arriving at the lake, Alex brought a quiet splashing noise to my attention in the nearby brook. The Suckers were spawning! At that point, I knew they it would be hard to get a solid bite but I knew that our odds had just shot way up. Until this point, no one we knew had been able to successfully catch this species, despite many attempts. I quickly set up a basic split shot and worm rig and got to work tempting the fish. Eventually, one slurped up the nub of worm and I set the hook before it could spit it out like so many others had. I had caught my Summer Sucker, possibly one of the rarest fish I've ever caught!



Bugs were out!

After I caught my fish, it was Alex's turn. I re-baited the hook and she worked on the fish. The bugs were pretty bad so she wore her bug net which prevented her from seeing quite as clearly as I could (I removed mine to get the fish). That being said, after a solid effort, she lifted out her Sucker as well :) I believe I caught a female and she has a smaller, but prettier, male.



I can't believe we were lucky enough to catch these guys spawning, it has to be a pretty rare event. We left for home early, both satisfied with our catches.



2 comments:

  1. Those suckers in that creek attract the local black bear population, surprised you didn't see one of those.

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    1. Maybe they all ran off when we showed up lol, we didn't see a single one.

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