Central Lake Ontario Sport Anglers members Herman and Virginia Baughman make sure 12,000 salmon fry get their breakfast at Wellington Harbour. The fish are due to be released into Lake Ontario in early May.

The Chinook salmon population in the eastern waters of Lake Ontario is making a comeback, thanks in no small part to the efforts of Central Lake Ontario Sport Anglers (CLOSA).

A pen holding 12,000 salmon fry is currently tied to a dock in Wellington Harbour and will be released into the lake in another week as part of the group’s “imprinting” program.

Last week two of CLOSA’s board members, Herman and Virginia Baughman, were at the harbour feeding the fry, in preparation for their impending release, perhaps as early as May 1.

“We’ve always been a conservation group, but over the years we have evolved into a salmon imprinting group,” Herman said. “We are trying to get the salmon back in this end of the lake and right now, all indications are that this is working pretty good.”

The salmon fry are kept in a pen in local waters for a period of approximately four weeks, while they imprint to the area — much the way “a calf imprints to its mother,” said Herman.

After release, they will remain in this part of Lake Ontario and return to waters such as Wellington Harbour to spawn.

“They do it in the west end of the lake and it’s been proven to work,” he said. “They catch salmon that have been released there and that’s what we want here.”

The fry are fin clipped with manicure scissors prior to being placed in the pen, allowing the fish to be monitored when caught in subsequent years.

“Every year they are clipped differently and that allows us to monitor the fish when they are caught,” said Herman.

This is the seventh year the program has run in the Quinte region and while the salmon fry come from Ringwood Hatchery in Stouffville, volunteers do everything else including building the pens, ensuring the fry are fed and released into the lake.

The Baughmans said a team of 20 to 25 volunteers ensure the fry are fed every two-and-a-half hours throughout the day and constantly monitor data such as feed times and water temperatures.

In addition to the 12,000 to be released through the imprinting program, an additional 30,000 were released directly into the lake Sunday evening, which included 15,000 at the mouth of the Wellington Harbour and the same amount near Consecon.

Herman said there is already evidence the program is succeeding locally after the first six years.

“We have no way of knowing how many will survive, but we know some are because we are catching them with fins clipped,” he said.

“There were 30,000 brown trout released in Athol Bay two years ago and now 30 per cent of all the browns caught in this area are from that release, so that shows you this type of thing can work very well.”

Not only are the Baughmans keen on restoring the Chinook population in this region, they also love catching them.

“We love to fish and when the season starts, it completely changes our lives,” said Virginia. “We go to bed early and we are up early, so we can get out there and fish.”

She said while CLOSA currently has approximately 100 members, many of those are from outside this area and they would like to increase the numbers locally.

“It will make us stronger if we can increase the membership locally,” she said.

“Right now, we depend on a lot of people who live nearby but aren’t members to help us with projects like this.”

The group will hold its Spring Walleye Derby in West Lake May 22.

For more information on CLOSA or entering the derby, contact the Baughmans at 613-969-0713 or by e-mail at hermanbaughman@xplornet.com.