Sweet Caroline

If Alewife entered LO through the canal system is it possible that there still is an influx of new Alewife coming into the lake from the ocean? Not sure if this is still possible or if has ever been studied but I thought I'd ask.

Good insight Gill-T. I started reading a little bit about Lake Erie phosphorus problems. Doesn't appear that there is a quick and easy solution to the phosphorus load from agriculture going in to Lake Erie. Lake Erie has actually been getting worse in recent years. Seems the same struggles have been going in other parts of the country for decades with little progress i.e dead zones in Gulf and Chesapeake Bay as prime examples. One man's trash (Erie) is another mans treasure (Ontario) I guess. Good read for those that are interested http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/us/lifting-ban-toledo-says-its-water-is-safe-to-drink-again.html

Very interesting read. I also listened to the audio. Was there any mention of the impact of the spiney water flea on Alewife diet? It is my understanding that Alewife have adapted to feeding on them which should provide a plentiful food source for most of the summer. I always thought the arrival of these was somewhat of a saving grace as an alternative and plentiful food source for Alewife. Not sure if there has been much research done on this dynamic or not. We really need to get to the point with our stocking efforts that we can follow the Alewife hatches. High hatch, stock more, low hatch stock less. You see this with just about any other natural population i.e when food sources are low, reproduction is decreased and when it is high reproduction is increased. Stocking the same amount year after year regardless of the previous year alewife hatch is not a healthy way to manage a fishery. We are doing the bait trawls now. The results of the YOY alewife findings should determine the Spring 2017 Salmon stocking. According to the Huron study one of the biggest factors leading to a crash is missing bait year classes. By continuing to stock the same amount of salmon after two years of poor alewife hatches doesn’t make a lot of sense. We very well could decimate those two year classes making it all the more difficult for the alewife population to recover as there won’t be a sizable breeding population of Alewife 2-3 years from now. Add in a bad winter in one of those future years and a bait crash is very is very possible. Out of everything mentioned in this report, the most concerning factor is the additional efforts that will be done in the future to decrease nutrient load in Lake Erie. A highly productive Lake Erie feeding Lake Ontario clearly is what separates us from Huron and Michigan as the more productive lake. The balancing act that will follow is not allowing the adult Alewife population to get so high that the lake cannot support a good hatch. This is what happened in 2003 in Huron. A record high Alewife hatch was followed by a total crash of the whole population. Basically they ate themselves out of house and home and nothing survived the winter. The other side to that is that if the Adult Alewife population is lowered and has a couple bad years of YOY hatches and the predator population remains high the Alewife population could be decimated. To be honest, I’m not sure we can control any of this and we may just have to deal with the cards we are handed, much like Huron is doing now.

Great info and a lot think about when it comes to managing Lake Ontario. The Huron perspective was very insightful. I don't think for one minute we couldn't end up in the same situation if we are not careful. LO is more productive but we also stock 3X more fish/acre in LO than both Huron and Michigan did before the crash. LO stats will show that in the past decade catch rates have increased and size has decreased which is exactly what Huron and Michigan saw before the crash. Thanks for sharing.

No denying that 40lb Kings are pretty much gone from LO and 35lb+ fish are scarce. Next will it be 30, then 25, then 20 like Lake Michigan? If the theory is that the fish are all maturing early because of excessive bait, then wouldn’t Lake Michigan and Huron salmon mature late because of not enough bait? 4 year olds should be common in their catch if that is the case. I like the optimism and I’m not trying to be a naysayer, but I think we need to be happy with what we have and not push the envelope. Stocking more salmon is risky. Nature is weird. We could be seeing more mature 3 yr olds because the environment has changed and evolution kicks in and says it is better to reproduce earlier than later. 20 yrs ago those same fish may have stayed in the lake for another year and put on another 10 lbs. All just a theory of course, but my point is the best thing we have right now is examples of very similar environments in other Great Lakes. I know the Lake Ontario is different, more productive, etc, but let’s not kid ourselves that we can possibly end up in the same situation if we are not careful. The cold winters don’t help, but does anybody really think if we had two warm winters that 40lb or 35lb plus salmon would be back in the numbers they used to be 10, 20, 30 yrs ago? My two cents…J

1988 23ft Sea Ray. 2 Electric cannon downriggers, trailer, 2000 15hp honda 4 stroke , rod holders all included, 5.7liter. merc engine. Well kept and clean boat. Stored in pole barn year round. Engine & lower unit oil changed every Fall, washed/waxed every Spring. Both engines run great. Can be used for fishing or pleasure. Fishing equipment easily removed. Will consider lower bids without equipment. $5499 OBO. End of Season - Boats got to go

just sent you a PM

Just sent you a PM

also was in late August

Probably about 5-6 yrs ago

Biggest walleye I ever caught was trolling in the Genny river. I hooked a 4 ft stringer that it had through its gill. Fish was still alive too. Somebody must have lost it from shore upstream.

Thanks. Out of curiosity what is the water temp right now?

Dave, Is it only steelhead that are more susceptible to mortality after being released? The reason I ask is that I have had many instances with browns in the tribs where I have caught the same brown in the same hole 2-5 times over the course of a trib season. They fought just as well and looked just as healthy (sometimes even more healthy) after each time I caught them. This made me a true believer in the benefits of catch & release. I would think the same would apply to steelhead? Granted a steelhead probably would be on the move more and not stay in the same hole as much as brown does during the trib season. Great insight and points of view from everybody BTW

I speculate that with all the transportation of invasives throughout the world that in 100 years similar climates throughout the world will have the same ecosystems. There are already complaints of largemouth bass taking over areas of Asia and Pacific salmon running Atlantic rivers. Typically once an invasive enters a system their population explodes until a predator develops and keeps them in check i.e gobies/sheephead on zebra mussels, trout and bass on gobies, alewifes on spiney water fleas, etc