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The survey was conducted by SUNY Fredonia Assistant Professor Tim Strakosh, his student Josh Rucinski, and Jim Markham, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) steelhead biologist for Lake Erie.
The researchers presented their findings at the 9th Annual Student Research and Creativity Exposition, on Thursday, April 26 in the Williams Center.
Two steelhead seasons bring in tourist dollars
What the survey revealed is that anglers from all over the United States—and even as far away as Europe—travel to Canadaway Creek in hopes of landing a hefty, hard-fighting fish known as the steelhead. The researchers determined that on average each non-resident angler spends $64 per day in Fredonia and other parts of the county. With the prime steelhead season running from September to December, and again from February to April, that could add up to an impressive flow of dollars into the county’s economy.
Only 4.7 percent of non-resident fishermen said they would travel to Chautauqua County if they were not fishing, which the researchers said indicates that sport fishing is attracting money that would not otherwise be spent in the county.
“Economic assessments like this are important in the development of local economic and tourist programs,” said Dr. Strakosh. “It’s exciting to note that our own Canadaway Creek is drawing people here from a long distance.”
Mr. Rucinski, an environmental sciences major from Glenmont, N.Y., who has since graduated, collected the data for the survey from fly fishermen at various access points along Canadaway Creek from October to December 2006.
Anglers surveyed came from 11 states, Canada, and France
Of the anglers surveyed more than half were non-residents, both from foreign countries—Canada and France—and from 11 different states, including Pennsylvania, Delaware, Michigan, New Jersey, Massachusetts, West Virginia, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Virginia and Utah.
This influx to Chautauqua County is a testament, Dr. Strakosh said, both to the popularity of fly fishing, and the exhilarating experience of catching a steelhead, which in Canadaway Creek can average 12 pounds and measure as long as 30”.
Part of Steelhead Alley
Steelhead, which are a type of rainbow trout, originated in the Pacific Northwest. Their presence in the Lake Erie region is the result of efforts by the NYSDEC and other groups to establish a major Great Lakes fishery through stocking steelhead in Lake Erie tributaries, first in the early 1950s and again in the 1980s. The steelhead population grew so rapidly that outdoor writers quickly dubbed the network of tributaries from Cleveland to Buffalo “Steelhead Alley.”
In 1984, the NYSDEC stocked 38,000 steelhead in Canadaway Creek, and every spring and fall that legacy is evident in the large number of steelhead that venture from Lake Erie into the creek in search of warmer waters (ideally about 54 degrees Fahrenheit) in which to live and spawn.
