LongLine

Bottom is definitely an R&R. Great spoon!

WTG Rich!

. Hope the little guy got some. He'll remember this trip.

Glad you got a bunch of fish. Sucks about the truck.

Brian (Gambler) - It's been my experience that west of river at 100 Ft or so is generally colder than east of river at same depth. I've seen 4-5 deg difference. That's why I prefer taking a left out of the river.

I stack. Too many "cluster F's" with sliders, especially with fleas.

Read through your report...quite interesting. Water Authority temps much better than mid-lake buoy, however it's been my experience that temp at same depth a few miles away can be quite different. Wish there were a lot more thermometers out there. Did some looking today & found this: Surface temp from beginning of this year warmer than 30 yr average. Also somewhat same for last year. Did some more looking - at Historical % Ice coverage. www.glerl.noaa.gov/data/ice/#historical Your report states 2012, 2016, 2020 were good years and 2014, 2017 & 2018 poor years. I noticed that for the good years % ice coverage was relatively low and ice gone by early-mid March, whereas poor years had much greater %'s and ice lasted into end of 1st week in April. El Nino/La Nina. ??? I think La Nina usually gives us warmer weather. I know NOAA has said this is 2nd La Nina year in a row & are predicting it'll last into 2023.

He'll remember that trip for a long time.

Thanx! I asked cuz i remember a few yrs ago at St of Lake meeting one of presenters suggested fleas not very good for Alewives.

Thanx! (What are they eating? Fleas more nutritional than originally thought?)

Was hoping he was following this.

L.S.S.C. has a real good thermal history of the St. Mary's (where they stock them.) Also Superior doesn't have alewives and Huron doesn't have enough to say so.

Has anyone seen this year's prey fish assessment? For alewife numbers/condition? It's not online. They didn't do one according to Annual Report in 2020. rather they looked at fish stomachs. Kind of "fishy" that this draft comes out before we can see the data for 2021. Talk is that there was an explosion in Alewife population this year & it appears Kings are being caught on smaller clean spoons this year.

If the St. Mary's is loaded with Kings, it is only during spawning time. Superior has no Alewives & Huron has only a very few. This study says tagged Kings from Huron go to Michigan to eat. Massive tagging study reinforces link between alewife densities and Chinook salmon growth patterns | Michigan Sea Grant If the NYSDEC, USGS and/or USF&WS would say they fear the alewives were going to disappear (like they did in Huron); that would be one thing but to pursue the project because an unquantified number of guys (who may or may not be able to properly ID them) want more diversity is totally another.

They don't play nice with Steelhead/Rainbows.