Muscalonge, Cayuga lake 1879

[Stinky Finger]

So once upon a time Cayuga lake had muskies? Interesting!

(article near top center of page)

http://fultonhistory.com/newspaper%202/ ... 4jbig2.pdf

[Ronix 51]

bring 'em back! hell put them in all of the finger lakes haha. canandaigua would be a nice esox lake plenty of alewives, suckers, perch, and trout for them to eat...although I doubt any of the trout fisherman would agree with that idea

[Ronix 51]

now that I read it i might guess it was a case of mistaken identity?

[Stinky Finger]

now that I read it i might guess it was a case of mistaken identity?

That's what I thought at first too but it identifies the different species caught, pike, bullhead, perch, muscalonge. If pike weren't listed I'd think it was mistaken identity but it's not.

[NitroMusky]

could they be labeling pickerel as pike and pike as musky?

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[Stinky Finger]

No, they list all three, pickerel, pike and muskie. These were pros, market fishermen. They knew what they were dealing with.

I've seen other old references to "muscalonge" in the Finger Lakes from mid 19th century so I believe they were there.

It would be interesting to know how many of the lakes had muskies originally, when the lakes existed in their natural state before canals and dams changed things.

The spelling "muscalonge" was used in New York up into the 1960's.

[NitroMusky]

Ok so you got me interested...in doing a little search of my own I believe that it's tough to know if the terms they used back then meant the same as today. for instance as recently as the 20s there were something like 8 species of esox including three species of muskie. So i think its tough to definitively conclude the fish we call muskies were indeed in Cayuga - at least to me. Maybe there is more info from the earlier days that could be found somewhere?

If you're interested in the scientific classification, descriptions and views from 90 years ago, this is pretty interesting. Maybe you've seen it

http://www.archive.org/details/pikepickerelmuska09weed

You can click on the read online option to the left to see the scanned version with pics

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[NitroMusky]

A little more on the subject from the late 1870s clouds this a little more.

Seth Green informs me that the Muskallonge has been taken from Cayuga Lake. Several fishermen also maintain the same. Yet in no case were they able to recognize more than two species, E. reticulatus and E. lucius. Mr. Kipp does not regard the Muskallonge as an inhabitant of Cayuga Lake.

I am inclined to believe that he is correct, and so omit it from this list.

E. lucius is light-spotted, while E. masquinongy is darkspotted; and so the two are easily distinguished.

Suggests to me that any musky caught in Cayuga was either an ID error (likely) or a rare or errant fish (possibly) but certainly suggests that if present, they were not at all common.

Not sure if this google link will expire but here it is:

Annals of the New York State Academy of Sciences v4

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