Photo courtesy of NCWRC. Tony Robinson hold his state record 9.2 ounce kokanee salmon, caught in Nantahala Lake on September 7.

While most people associate salmon with the Northeast and the West Coast, Tony Robinson knows of a honey hole in western North Carolina that produces a salmon that can put up quite a fight despite its relatively small size.

On Sept. 7, Robinson, of Burke County, landed a newly established freshwater fish state record for kokanee salmon. Robinson caught the fish, which weighed 9.2 ounces and measured 11 ½ inches in length, from Nantahala Lake in Macon County using an Eagle Claw rod, Penn 309 reel and a fin-tail spoon as a lure.

Kokanee salmon are native to the western United States. Those found in Nantahala Lake are a remnant population from a stocking done in the mid-1960s by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission in an attempt to establish the species as a forage fish for other predator fishes in the lake.

In lakes, kokanee salmon do not grow very large, generally less than 20 inches in length, which is why they were stocked as a forage species. They feed almost exclusively on plankton and on small aquatic organisms, such as freshwater shrimp.

The Nantahala population represents a landlocked form of the anadromous (spawns in fresh water, lives in the ocean) sockeye salmon found in the western United States. Adults make a spawning migration up the Nantahala River each fall.

The fish was weighed on certified scales at Penny Patch in Morganton and was certified by Robert Brown, a fisheries biologist with the Commission.

To qualify for a state record, anglers must have caught their fish on a hook and line, must have their fish weighed on a certified scale witnessed by one observer, have the fish positively identified by a qualified expert from the Commission and submit an application with a full, side-view photo of the fish.

For a list of all freshwater fish state records in North Carolina, visit the Commission’s Web site, www.ncwildlife.org.