King Davy

Yeah Gambler it’s been a risk for 50 years. Guys can forget about Caledonia for Salmon they legally can’t knowingly introduce potential viruses into a state hatchery. It’s Why they can’t ever raise rainbows there because of whirling disease. Comes down to having an extra $200 million laying around. I’m all for a nice new hatchery. Every one we have is ancient. Yeah steelhead aren’t fussy when it comes to forage. They’ll eat any bait fish and they love bugs. Used to catch them on a dry fly (bumble bee) in 600 foot of water. Maybe that fish ate bugs cause he couldn’t find any alewives. Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United

I think the 21 inch size on paper was supposed to add maybe 17 to 20% more fish to stay in the system longer for all anglers to get a shot at. I’m not sure I have that number right. We’d have to ask DEC. When we lost the majority of the adult steelhead fall 2014 into Spring of 2015. Then your starting over. There is the class behind them but some of them were affected. Essentially we found fish dying that were say five pounds and greater. I’ve known the DEC guys and some of the USGS folks a long time. I’m from a big data driven career. I believe in the science. Just how I’m wired. Knowing the folks I see no reason they want to make a mistake or make up a problem to end up cutting stocking. Are they willing to error on the safe side ..., yes. I have some friends still up in Michigan in Huron and LM. When those fisheries crashed it was catastrophic for sportsmen, many businesses etc. So three years of cuts and three years of good fishing and many would say epic in the lake. I still think the lake fishery for salmon is going to take a hit unless we have great wild repo success. But I fished through most of the 90’s with no wild fish coming to the rescue. Nobody wants to hear this but I’m fortunate to fish many other places. We are pretty spoiled. The west coast king and steelhead fishery and even more tragic the Alaskan salmon fishery are in serious decline. We have the finest open water fishery in the US for Salmon. Likely the world. We have a destination brown trout fishery west of Sodus to the Niagara. And the most targeted fish over all in the tribs are steelhead and we are recovering from the die off. We are going to have to grind through a few more years in hoping the food web makes a bounce back. And the target of prominence can’t just be the open lake. The trib season is a full 8 months long bringing millions of dollars especially to smaller communities. Imagine if the boats were all tucked away in Sept. and there wasn’t any tourism in places like Pulaski... Oak Orchard... etc for nearly 8 months. Lots of people in those communities would suffer. We need both fisheries to be strong. DEC is trying to keep both those balls in the air despite the environmental issues. I’m in. I trust them. Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United

Spoonfed-1 My buddy fished the Ganny three weeks ago and you could walk across the fish. I think he said over 20k through the counter. Interesting with all these fish around not another angler around. I’m in the camp that believes all South shore tribs produce some wild fish. I fish for steelhead until mid May before I get out on the lake. I see king fry in all the rivers I fish of medium size. So I’m making an assumption that fish in these tribs might be more those fish coming home than fish straying from the Salmon River. This is the first three year return of the shortened stocking of 20%. So that is a factor, high catch rates not sure what the harvest was but it would seem to be higher than long term average. Crappy water.... high lake backing up in my local big river squelching flows at the mouth for weeks. Third week of Sept. fishing off the Genny.... nobody home at the river mouth tons of big hooks in 100 foot. Sooo once again Mother Nature bringing the big hook to the plate. Not many get great wood on a big league curve ball. We’ll never figure this all out. The fish still have the upper hand. That’s what keeps us coming back. Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United

I know that salmon fishing hasn’t been off the chain for the gangs that flock to the more popular rivers but my experience this fall is I’ve found the least “bitey” fish then in a long time . Labor Day weekend most fish were in warp 8 and ran the length of the river in a day or less. They wouldn’t hold even in the pools. Now that you find hens with the boys courting them fighting each other for her affection, you swing a streamer by them and you’ll experience the pure primal instinct that we all love. Especially fun with the rod in your hand when that that moment happens. Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United

Spoonfed-1. Power company ran the river at 750 cfs for the last rafting event of the year on Labor Day weekend. I fished the lower river and had 100’s of salmon come by each day for three solid days. We never had another significant rain event until a week ago. Meanwhile the hatchery was loaded along with beaver dam brook. I might be wrong but I thought I heard DEC collected 4 million eggs. Fishing was slow if you are comparing seeing 2000 fish run at once after Labor Day. I was there last week fishing for steelhead and fished down lots of pocket water as fresh in bows like pockets. Every where I went I had salmon streaming but me. Again not a run you over stampede but then again we are near the end of Oct. This past Wed. I landed three Chinook salmon in a local trib out west. Big bright fish. One was 43 inches. These guys were sitting behind a dime bright silver hen. There were salmon in every pocket I fished looking for bows and browns. I’ve seen this in the past many times where in a low water year which we’ve had everywhere the fish trickle in. In years like this I had bright kings spawning in front of me at Christmas. If the majority of the fish are in fact wild I’ve seen them in a whole different schedule than what we usually expect. Lastly if many of the 237% increase in catch rates last year were in fact heavy on two year olds and A high percent were harvested... they aren’t around anymore to swim in a river. If the salmon harvest was as good as the catching this year... there are a lot of spawners are in freezers I’d guess. Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United

Weave... I can appreciate lake anglers after salmon cuts the last few years being Leary of a creel change in the lake. But if you follow the strategy of a manager and they have to cover all the bases and knowing that the actual creel limit for silvers doesn’t change just one less for a species that gets spread the thinnest for the need to have them in the system for both the lake and tribs, for many of us it makes sense. Again my focus is on 12 months a year overall management of these two key species. There is pain and at the moment in this reg additional pain for the lake, yet each has to be honest on what the real impact is to them. And yes there are risks to all fish including steelhead to be released dead of summer. And that could be the trib pain if it truly manifests itself. And NO reg if it’s truly damaging is cast in stone. If it’s a bad move, they’ll change it back. Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United

So before anybody comes back and says who cares about 1993. I played this out because Steelhead and Chinook salmon are connected at the hip. We need both and we need both to have a healthy full year fishery, and more importantly I want you to understand how many twists and turns fishery managers have to deal with year to year decade to decade in playing against the ultimate casino house. Mother Nature. And what they have to do... to try to keep us all into fish. Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United

This is going to take a few paragraphs so hang in there. This response isn’t trying to lean one way or the other. It’s to take you through what has happened in the past because reading these threads I’m not sure everyone has this intel. 1993- I’m the president of the western Lake Ontario charter boat association and I sit on the NYS sport fishing council. DEC calls a meeting made up truly of Charter Boat Capt’s, USGS and DEC. As a result of lake wide bait trawls Bob O’Gorman then the top alewife scientist, Recommends to DEC we are in serious trouble with bait fish populations. Presents his Data and along with DEC’s data they decide to cut salmon stocking from 2.1 million down to 1 million. Drastic cut. You can imagine the demeanor in that room. KEY to this was the ferc license treaty with Niagara Mowhawk on the Salmon River was still five years away (1998). Without base flows in the salmon river there was no measurable wild fish production out of the salmon river to cushion the stocking cuts. So we Charter Capt’s we’re forced to relay heavily on steelhead to get our folks action. I can tell you that a 5% survival to adult stage of stocked smolts is probably more the norm but say it was 10%. That meant we had 100k of a possible 1M salmon stocked for each year class. Not many fish to find in the giant space that is LO. What happens next Steelhead fishing on the tribs from mid 90’s right to 2000 began to tank alarmingly. Mainly because of the heavy predation from the lake. In 1998 two things happened. The power company agreed to base flows on the salmon river. And DEC started offering at state of the lake meetings and other stakeholder events questionnaires on what folks would like to see from the program. At that time trib anglers started responding in mass to cut the creel limit on the tribs for Steelhead. This wave of interest grew into a tidal wave of support. By then the trib environment was changing. Anglers were more interested in “opportunity” to fish to fish than harvest three a day. At the same time base flows got into gear, DEC started to see more and more wild naturally produced kings in the stream proper. They immediately started to seine 12 locations on the river in May and June to see what the wild fish impact was. To date in a good year they can see as many as 10M wild fish on their annual project to 3 to 5m in a down year. At the same time early 2000’s with many years of low salmon stocking the alewives bounced back and DEC returned to stocking the 2.1 M fish. The returns of steelhead to the hatchery in the late 90’s to 2003 got lower each year, to where once they may see 20k fish in the raceway, they now saw less then 5k. 2003 through discussions with the same style focus group we have today, they decided to cut the tribs from 3 to 1 fish a day. Within two years of the new reg the numbers of steelhead returning to the hatchery easily doubled. In some years tripled. All were happy, Great Lake fishing for salmon again with both wild and hatchery fish, and trib fishing was not only on the raise, the effort on angler hours began to double the lake hours. For all sorts of reasons but not because the lake was poor fishing. In the contrary it was solid to spectacular. Fast forward to 2014. We experience a true polar vortex and not only does it devastate the forage base, adult steelhead are impacted into a massive die off( first time we’ve ever experienced anything like that.) In a race to not topple over the fishery DEC after looking at trawl data finds a couple large holes in the year class make up for bait that more than any other fish needs Chinook salmon and enacts the stocking reductions. Yet with the stocking reductions salmon numbers are padded by wild fish, salmon fishing goes from great to off the chain. In 2018 the success rate for us catching salmon on the lake went up 237%. Crazy. Can’t wait till spring to see what 2019 looked like. Meanwhile 2014,15, and 16 the steelhead fishing during the long 7 to 8 month trib season was gone. We had to wait till the 2015 fish reach at least 3 years old to truly have them back in the tribs in decent fishable numbers. So rational and you have to understand as formulating a management plan for the full 12 month fishing season, DEC is probably trying to spread the wealth. While salmon can get some recruitment from wild fish to the stocking, we don’t have the habitat to reproduce steelhead naturally simply because a rainbow spends over a year in a river before heading to open water. We have very little successful natural recruitment on the US side of LO. For sure not enough to to bolster the 650k annually stocked steelhead. Yes we all have our own interests. Personally I’m always interested in both the lake and the tribs to be viable. I fish both and have since the program started 50 years ago. Can these natural catastrophic issues happen again. You betcha. If you are running your management plan to have to take account of potential risks. You make some stocking, regs changes, etc to mitigate the next big event that could impact the entire fishery either in the open lake or our rivers or both.

We have a different perspective on commenting. I guess you see this as a ballot vote. “Comment” for me is to describe why or why not you agree or disagree with something. Each time you comment it arrives to DEC with what ever your email addy is. I believe they are looking for an individuals personal take on the regs not just a canned response. But if folks want to do that... have at it. Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United

Yankee and I have talked about the new sensation on the tribs which is float fishing with pin outfits. Most perfect presentation and one can catch a lot of fish in a day. We all at one time in our life as fisherman wanted to catch as many fish as we could in a day. Eventually you evolve into trying to catch that fish of a life time.... and ultimately I just want to catch fish the way I want to catch them. So I’ve had dozens of discussions with anglers on tribs who are hammering fish. I leave them with the thought that if I can’t remember something unique about fish # 2, 8, 14, 26.... just maybe I’ve over stayed my welcome. Eventually they”ll come around. Lake trollers especially rec anglers who are dialed in on the fish and hooking and landing way more fish then they could legally keep know they have to successfully release fish and I’ll assume most make an honest effort to do so successfully. It’s simply not impossible. And I can’t have hard feelings for a group of folks who put a hard 40 50 hours in at work and now have a Saturday off to go fishing with their boat and have one of those days to remember. I talked to many rec guys who don’t keep any fish so they obviously figure out how to release them. Again the focus of the 2020 management plan is to have a fishery both open water and tribs that last 12 full months provide ample opportunity to catch fish. In the case of Steelhead for four or five of the up to 8 months they are in our rivers are the only species to reliably fish for. So managing to provide the best opportunity for all is the goal. DEC thinks these regs would improve that opportunity from where we are today. If you agree tell them why, if you disagree tell them why. Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United

For What it’s Worth and for those who are not aware, The Lake Ontario regs and revised management plan is included in the overall fish management plans for the entire state. DEC Bureau Chief of Fisheries Steve Hurst is working with all regions of New York State to revise and update their fish management plans where many haven’t been reviewed and updated for 30 years or more. A huge task in it’s own right. Included in this project is the Lake Ontario Watershed, both in conjunction with Canada for the overall open waters of the Lake Program, as well as specific plans for our New York open waters and tributaries. I can also tell you as management plans have been updated, many of them include regulation changes to align with DEC’s going forward strategies. So this is a state wide initiative. However lets boil down the Regulation proposals for LO and it’s tribs. To start lets remember the going forward management strategy. And BTW the Steelhead part of this was originally put in place by Bill Pearce, then Fisheries manager back in the late 60’s. The Lake was to be managed for Chinook Salmon as the marquee species in the lake, and Steelhead were to be managed as the marquee species in the tribs. That Coho Salmon, and brown trout along with Lake trout would be a staple to the open water fishery, and icing on the cake in the tribs, and Steelhead would be icing on the cake in the open waters of the Lake. Anyone who has been to the state of the lake meetings or on the DEC site should have already heard or read this. Simply…The Goal is managing the LO watershed for the 12 month a year fishery that it actually is. Which includes a huge stakeholder usage on the tribs. 1) Extending the season on Lake Trout fishing on the Niagara river on the NYS side to align with the Canadian regs. Doesn’t seem to be little if any push back to this. 2) Reduce Brown Trout harvest in the tribs from 3 to 1. NYS DEC from creel census on the tribs that includes harvest and C&R percentages have come to realize that LO and its tribs is now a world class brown trout destination fishery. We grow the biggest brown trout in the US on average. And we have a unique trib fishery that now entertains anglers from as far west as Oregon, and includes outfitters from Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming putting together excursions to come to our rivers and streams. Then add in the out of state anglers from states within a day’s drive of here, and we have a horde of anglers here from Oct. thru Dec when these fish are in the system. This reg could provide maximum opportunity for anglers targeting them. Also recent trib creel surveys suggest more and more anglers are releasing a higher percentage of brown trout. BTW this is a reg that has been proposed several times since 2003. It’s never made it to the docket until now, but in DEC management strategy knowing the high use of our tribs and the very long September to end of April trib season has included it this year. 3) Increase harvest size limit of Steelhead on the tribs from 21 to 25 inches: Also a regulation that was proposed back in 2003 when the tribs went from 3 to 1 fish per day. The rational back then as it is today comes from 1983 thru 2018 data where DEC sizes every fish they handle for spawning at Altmar. The data shows that 98.2 percent of spawning Steelhead are 25 inches or greater. Or true three year olds. The rational today as it was back in 2003, Steelhead anglers would like to see a fish survive the system as at least a 1 salt fish. The term used for migrating steelhead out west. In other words a fish is in the system for at least one spawning cycle. Then open for harvest by anyone anywhere (Lake or Tribs) after that. This was proposed at the Stakeholders meeting for both lake and tribs. Through conversation by the panel it was turned down for the lake and would remain 21 inches as it is today in the lake and only be changed in the tribs. The interest from trib anglers especially after the massive adult die off of our Steelhead in 2014-2015 is to get back to the Trophy fishery we enjoyed back in the 90’s and early 2000’s of having a chance to catch a fish in the 15 to 20 pound range. When steelhead get past that three year 1 salt stage they can grow big and fast. 4) Reduce the lake creel for Steelhead from 3 to 2: This was the result from DEC after turning down the overall 25 inch size limit. Again the rational is managing in this case Steelhead for the long trib fishery in which for close to four months or more, they are the only species in our rivers in any numbers to fish for. OK this is my personal rational for this 2020 management plan and why I’m in favor of it. Steelhead can be and are fished for 12 months a year. They can be accessed by anglers every month and day of the year. Many who aren’t died in the wool trib anglers might say nobody is fishing in Dec through Feb. And that would be a huge misconception. While many smaller water ways may be inaccessible, any tail water fishery is alive an active all winter long with tons of anglers…seven days a week. We have the finest foul weather gear you can imagine to stand in and fish rivers all winter long. WE don’t take that time off….and so either are the fish left alone. Meanwhile Salmon who are not spawning age enjoy nearly six months of solitude, and brown trout who are heavily fished for at least get a short reprieve from angling pressure normally Jan through mid March before the boats start getting dunked again. But not Steelhead they are available year round to either a troller or a trib angler. High dead loss of lake caught steelhead. 2019 was my 48th year fishing the open waters of LO. 22 of those years as a licensed Charter Capt. It simply was never my experience of huge dead loss of any species caught on my boat if the fish wasn’t mortally wounded from fishing hooks. Even in the more dangerous months of July and August. I employed handling techniques to successfully release a fish either rec fishing or guiding if not intending to keep a fish. It is the responsibility of every angler to learn how to and execute proper fish handling techniques. I did everything from releasing fish alongside the boat which many can do with a low profile freeboard boat. To having a 110 qt cooler as a resuscitation chamber in which to carefully place the fish with lake water, and adding ice to keep the temps in the mid 50’s range. That was me….can’t dictate what anyone else does, but I’ve been doing those things since the early 80’s after a few years of guiding when it was evident my clients wanted to pick and choose the fish they wanted to harvest. From my boat to being on others, more harm was done to fish who were kept out of the water too long, allowed to bang around the deck of a boat…or the ever popular hero shot with an anglers fingers through a fishes gills. If that’s going on….yeah box em up. There must be a large population of anglers who know how to properly C&R fish on their boat since on these web boards many share their score card for the day….posts like we were 18 for 24, 25, for 31 etc. I’ll end with this: To Be Fair to all…. I would recommend you don’t simply copy and paste anyone’s personal comment. I know that DEC is looking for YOUR comment. I can tell you if somebody writes in and says I agree, or disagree (a one line yes or no) with any of these regs it will not get counted. If they get dozens of responses with the exact same wording that were obviously copied….they likely won’t count them. They want to hear from you. What your thoughts and experiences are. These regs will be approved or not from you the stakeholder who has his or her own thoughts on what you experience out on the lake or in the tribs or both. This truly isn’t a ballot race. It’s rational thoughts on your experiences and what you’d like to see as management of the LO watershed for April of 2020.

Bob, never said the ECO's statement was about ticketing a Capt. this year. He simply stated he has written tickets for fishing violations on the lake as well as the tribs. And he mentioned he had written tickets on some Charter Capt's as well. I didn't ask him for specifics, as it was none of my business. There are laws being broken in our entire fishery every year. It's a problem, that only WE all together can address, to where we could make some headway if we were in solidarity with each other and showed our elected representatives that is was a big deal, from a business/economic and a moral sportsman standpoint, and a black eye on our society around this world class fishery and for the law makers in office in the LO regions. But hey thanks for sharing your story...

Gambler, TU does have state council reps who work in Albany on many different initiatives concerning the health of cold water fisheries throughout the state. They like many other organizations both from the lake and the tribs have not been successful in gaining any traction on curbing the illegal activities on either the lake or the tribs. Including In-Land tribs where this goes on as well. In our focus group discussions one of the main topics was this very subject. We even had ECO officers join those meetings on occasion. There wasn’t any progress…and candidly I didn’t expect we’d find any….and here’s why. The DEC is not the target. It’s our elected officials and judges. They make the laws and how severe the penalties are. Our fish laws offer at best a slap on the wrist. Single stakeholder groups have brought these issues to the table numerous times, without any success. WHY…because we are talking to the DEC. We …and my description of “WE” would include TU, ELOTSA, Genny Charter Boat Association, LOTAC, and any other fishing club or professional group to sit down with the elected state senators, and assemblymen and elected Judges in the LO watershed regions. We need leverage, and the most impactful leverage is when these law makers think they are going to lose VOTES if they don’t pay attention to us. When fish are raped out of the tribs or the lake …it’s stealing from all of us. If we are all at the table with these elected officials….we have leverage. If they don’t pay attention we can start sending the pictures of zipper raped fish to our local newspapers to state this kind of sickening activity is happening in this elected officials district. Until there is monetary pain and personal suffering for raping our fishery, no amount of ECO’s and tickets are going to stop this. Heavy fines, jail time and loss of property works in Canada, Alaska and all the western states I visit. We need the entire sport fishing community to get behind calling our elected officials out on this. Single….”Special Interest groups” will never be successful. With many different sport fishing groups involved, showing solidarity, it will gain traction with the general public of ending these dastardly deeds. There by creating a tidal wave of attention to this issue, and maybe finally getting them to take us all seriously.

While putting the Pens together at the Oak, an ECO stopped by to Chat. As usually happens we talked about the difficulty in catching and then having a Judge convict the ticketed offender. The ECO also shared a story about a Charter Boat Captain he ticketed for fishing violations....stating the problem is not only on the tribs. BUT I didn't come away from that conversation that ALL Charter Boat Captains are law breakers. If we REALLY want to fix this.....stop generalizing or profiling people just because of the method they fish, or where they choose to fish when a law is broken in either environment.

Just saw this post. Like many have said, it’s too bad we continue to banter back and forth between Lake and Trib anglers….when we all want the same thing a healthy fishery that provides opportunity. So I sit on these focus group meetings as a stakeholder representing trib fishing interest. Here are the facts. 1) Trib fishermen asked for a 25 inch limit on steelhead for the lake and tribs. We never asked for a creel reduction on the lake. WHY? DEC data from 1983 through spring of 2018 states that 98% of the Spawning steelhead returning to the Salmon river that are spawned are 25 inches and over on average. Furthermore after the die off of adult Steelhead in 2014, we’ve been fishing for smaller fish, and while we gained numbers back after four years of stocking since the die off, we have always wanted a trophy fishery for Steelhead. And Reelexcite (because we sat on the stakleholders meeting together then as well. ) can tell you that in 2004 when the tribs went to a 1 steelhead limit we sought a 25 inch limit way back then. So this is nothing new ….we’ve been working on this size change now for 16 years. 2) Lake Ontario is now a Brown Trout Destination Fishery in the tribs. People who used to go to very expensive places for big browns come here instead. Last Sunday I watched a film at a festival on sea run Browns in Iceland. The anglers caching these nice sea run fish. They are no bigger, and many times smaller than our LO browns. We have a world class Brown trout fishery. So we sought a reduction on the tribs from 3 to 1 brown trout per angler per day. DEC pushed us to state …people will stop coming if the creel is reduced. We produced data that showed the angler use of the tribs increased 10 fold after the Steelhead adjustment from 3 to 1 in the tribs. WHY? Because more people came simply because there would be more “opportunity” to fish to fish if not as many were being carted off. 3) First Pass DEC came back with 25 “ in the tribs, and increasing the size in the lake to 23”. 4) Second Pass DEC came back with staying at 21 inches but dropping the creel from 3 to 2. Here is some of the rationalization: Steelhead can be fished for 12 months 365 days a year. They are available to either a lake or trib angler every day no matter what the season month or weather. Brown trout are a close second. They may have a slight reprieve after spawning and transitioning back to the lake in the winter before the boating season begins. Obviously Salmon and Lake trout have some time to be rested from fishermen. Non spawning salmon aren’t’ being fished for in the open waters of Lake Ontario by large number of anglers from Oct through the following March most years around here. Lake trout are pursued in the Niagara River longer, but as spawners in the lake proper most are left alone. I’m only guessing, but I’ll assume DEC made this Reg to manage this fishery for the full 12 months knowing that Steelhead can be fished for as often as they can be and or are. DEC’s Bill Pearce who was in charge of getting this fishery off the ground back in 1968, had an architected plan, and that was the model DEC was following. Pacific Salmon, Lake Trout, and Brown trout would be the staple fish for the lake and Steelhead would be icing on the cake. Steelhead would be the Staple fish for the rivers, while Pacific Salmon, and Brown trout would be icing on the cake. I believe DEC in their management meetings reviewed these initiatives. Thus their SOTL proclamation, they were managing the lake for King Salmon, and the Rivers for Steelhead. And Brown trout along with Steelhead, and Pacific Salmon would have a play in both environments. McCloud River Steelhead were brought to Lake Ontario and the upper lakes back in the 1880’s. Many of you might not realize this, but remnants of these planting were being caught in places like the Salmon River back in the 50’s and 60’s before this program ever started in 68. Even more prevalent in the North shore rivers all these years and also in the upper lakes. There are many problems on both fronts. Illegal activity is an uphill battle when the highest fine one can get is $250. DEC does not create the penalties for fishing violations. We as sportsmen have to take that up with our elected officials. And Our Judges. I’ve spent the last 20 years in Alaska, and Western fisheries. You do these things there, you go to jail, get fined Thousands of dollars, and lose you equipment car and boat. Pen rearing: Yes we have a trib group doing the Pens at the Oak for Steelhead. We have some folks who’ve volunteered at Sandy. We’ve offered help at the Genny, and the group there has decided to stick with the folks they have. We have another group helping out in Niagara County as well. BUT….all have to understand, the LO fishery especially this time of year is not the only game in town. If you think trib fishermen are sitting on their hands this time of year you are sorely mistaken. There is a dozen stocking events in and around region 8 alone for inland streams and they are involved in all of those. There has been tree planting on several in land streams, tree trimming, and stream cleanups. The folks I represent participate in all of those at the very same time as the Pen programs. However, we should be involved with the pens as well, as many of us enjoy fishing the LO tribs. We have a 12 month a year fishery. It’s been documented for several years now that the usage is higher on the tribs than the lake. For many reasons, that doesn’t make one more important than the other, but it does state, we have to focus on managing this fishery for opportunity for all. I still fish the lake, the tribs and am fortunate to fish some pretty exotic places, and at the end of the day, I’m happiest being in my own back yard either on LO, it’s tribs or the many beautiful streams inland, to the ADK, and the Catskills. We have it all here. For LO, we simply have to work together. Is there going to be pain to bare sometimes, absolutely, but we are now in the 51st year of this marvelous fishery, and it’s still the best one in the US. I hope we can end this unrest and all focus on the bigger picture. This isn’t for any one special interest group, this fishery is for everybody no matter where they fish….and it has to be managed that way.

They lowered the steelhead limit just a year or so ago. Again lots of pressure from their river anglers (it used to be 5 on the lake and the rivers), and the fact that returns to the rivers where they depend on wild fish to reproduce were dwindling. I also participate on the Bi-National focus group. This would be better addressed by say Vince, but listening in, I don't think the Canadians worry to much about harvesting a limit so not much has been done on trying to square up a more universal LO limit for both shores..

Well stated SK8man. This is a diverse fishery with diverse stakeholders, but I think we have the same common goals. A healthy fishery, to where anglers when out fishing on the lake or a river simply have targets to fish for. After that it's up to your individual skill set on how successful you are at caching a fish. And the management strategy taking into account the diversity of both the lake and the tribs should be architected to best serve both.

I think we are still getting knotted up on thinking this is a tug of war on who puts the most dent in the Steelhead population. When in actuality the intent is not to pointing fingers at one group or the other but to dial in what a specific fishery is, and how best to manage it for both the open waters of the lake and the tribs. Each species brings a different dynamic for anglers. Pacific salmon have a pretty short open water season. Five and a half to maybe six months? They have a very short river season which at best is six weeks. Brown trout and Steelhead are available to a combination of lake and trib anglers 12 months a year. So there will be a lot of pressure on those two species. Even further think about this. Most lake anglers can choose what species you want to fish for that day. Run off shore for silvers, stay inshore for Browns and lakers. Past the salmon season when they are all gone, we fish for what is left. For awhile browns and steelhead. After December, it’s primarily one fish, Steelhead. And managing Brown trout and Steelhead for a full 12 months of chase VS say King Salmon where with our fall, winter and early spring boating season having minimal opportunity and the fact we know spawning salmon are all going to die….these management initiatives are a tad different for CREATING OPPORTUNITY to catch these fish. Let’s go back to the beginning. I’m aging myself, but I was there when Bill Pearce , and some of his top biologists Cliff Creech, Les Wedge and others architected the LO fishery. Like Tanner in Michigan they began with Coho salmon. As they did well, they started to include King Salmon, Brown trout, and of course by Federal direction native species Lake trout and Atlantic Salmon. However one fish had already been here nearly 100 years. The Steelhead. Migratory rainbows from the McCloud River from California were planted in all the great lakes in the 1880’s. Some of these fish were still returning to the Salmon River in the 1960’s but we had long ago lost the habitat required to foster a self-sustaining wild fishery. Our colleagues on the North shore still had and has today the habitat that fosters wild reproduction of Steelhead and why they don’t have massive hatchery stocking of these fish. Back to Pearce, his vision for LO was King and Coho salmon along with Brown trout and lake trout were going to be the primary sport fish for the open waters of the lake, while Steelhead and Atlantic salmon would be icing on the cake in the open waters, and the staple to create a successful River fishery. The Pacific Salmon though short lived in the tribs would be its icing, and brown trout as well. And this all made sense because we know Steelhead are generally in river systems seven months a year and in some systems like the Salmon river easily 8 months a year, and now with the Skamania strain you can catch a steelhead in the salmon river 12 months a year. Bureau of Fisheries Chief Steve Hurst is currently opening up every fishery management plan in the state. To include Finger Lakes and all inland streams and rivers in all regions of the state. Some of the current management plans are decades old, and this initiative is way overdue but a huge undertaking. While Steve and the DEC LO regional managers have spent the last year discussing the LO lake and trib plans, Steve has been leading this effort with many other groups in NYS regions to make sure the management plans are sound to again CREATE OPPORTUNITY to when you go fishing, you are fishing to fish….no matter if you are on the lake or a river . Two years ago Feb 11 we had this (by invite from DEC) to come to Altmar and discuss trib issues for the Salmon river and state wide. There were rec anglers, pro guides who fished the rivers and lake, and business owners. Every LO regional manager and other key DEC personnel were in attendance. This meeting was run by Steve LaPan and Hurst. It lasted four or five hours. Not one single second was there a participant that was blaming trib issues on the Lake fishery , either Charter Operators or Rec fishermen. There have all been a mountain of curve balls as of late tossed at this fishery, and the DEC is simply trying to manage for the whole, not one system or the other. It’s just all this is.

Not sure I heard that. The last trib lake wide creel census Scott Prindle did was I think 2015. I have the results some place , but it was after the die off, and neither the lake or the trib fishing for Steelhead was very good, dismal on the rivers for sure. I will grant you there is a high creeling of Steelhead on the Salmon river during Salmon season, which is usually after labor day until say Mid Oct. However all must understand the people who are fishing at this time are not your serious season Fall, winter, spring dedicated trib angler. Those folks are here to harvest as many fish as possible. If they can catch a steelhead, along with their three salmon, and three brown trout, they are al going in the cooler. Once that crew moves on, the dedicated season long folks show up and fish through the following spring. DEC does do a salmon river census every year, so you will see high creel rate that will skew the remainder of the fishing reports through the spring. Two years ago Feb, several trib stakeholders were invited to the Salmon River Hatchery to discuss trib issues. What came out of that meeting and a few follow ups was the salmon river which is the most important resource to our entire fishery to recruit Pacific Salmon and Steelhead to replenish the sport fisher, it should have it's own management plan and not be mixed in with the general plans. DEC is considering changes just for the salmon river. I found Scotts results. Over 90% of the anglers fishing for Steelhead released all of their caught fish.

Yeah I've caught gill liced Steelhead that have acted normal and others that did not. And we've all caught other salmon or trout that looked and or acted sickly. So unless many fish are showing up that way, we could assume those incidents are not the norm of an epidemic either man made or scientific. The essence of the three trout regs being the 1 brown trout creel change, and the two Steelhead regs is that these two species never get a down time. They are fished for one way or the other 12 months a year. Where as the remaining salmon population of non spawners still out in the lake have as many as what? Six to 8 months left alone by the lake anglers. And the Salmon that run offer about six solid weeks of chase. The intent has never been to take something away from one environment to only benefit the other. But with 12 months of solid pressure on these two species, is their management decisions to help both. It's clear that trib anglers overall don't harvest Steelhead, and season long trib anglers are releasing more brown trout, yet they are still heavily harvested for food and especially the females for eggs. A high number of trib caught fish are released with the anglers intent to keep them in the fishery to where both trib anglers and lake anglers can catch them again. Which brings us to a legit concern. How to successfully C&R a fish in either environment. There are many tried and true methods that work. It is the responsibility of any angler either on the lake or in a river to have the skills to employ C&R techniques. "Jerry" you could put an entire section on this web page on those techniques. Some have stated that trib anglers put to much pressure on these fish, and in some situations I totally agree. One has to decide when they've over stayed their welcome. Going 20 for 31 fishing river fish is in my mind overstaying your welcome. That is my humble opinion. However we see reports every week during the lake season, we were 28 for 35, or 20 for 31 etc. In any of those scenarios many fish on both the lake and the tribs are being caught and released. So lets face it folks we put tons of pressure on these fish 12 months a year. Steelhead and Brown trout are in the cross hairs all 12 months, and the reason DEC has tried to find some relief in possibly keeping more fish in the system, because nobody believes we'll lighten the pressure. Who wants to volunteer to fish less days?

Check the gums of fish you catch in the lake especially in May and June. That will indicate if they've been hooked several times. Most rivers are too warm by mid May and the fish have left except for tribs on the east end below the Tug Hill. I've actually caught some drop back Steelhead on dry flies closer to June in the Salmon while fishing for resident Brown trout. Our Lake Ontario Steelhead also carry gill lice, which can contribute to poorer condition. It's common in the great lakes and in the Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea rivers where I've caught wild Steelhead. And you see the same effect of poorer conditioned fish. If this is common place for the fish you are catching I hope anglers are alerting the DEC.

I would love to see a study on mortality for C&R for both the tribs and the lake. We know that would be expensive to put radio devices on a number of fish, and then the dedicated science resources it would include to track fish, collect and produce the data. I would imagine unless DEC has the funding for such and expensive project we wont see that. All the fish are smaller at least the species that spend enough time off-shore. Salmon and steelhead. We know that some species that YOY Steelhead require like mysis shrimp have been in serious decline for years. So I'm sure it's never one culprit that is impacting our fish for food source. It's probably several food source factors. One thing for certain if we harvest a fish , they aren't ever getting bigger. So if we keep a few a little longer maybe we can see some bigger fish despite the food source issues. We spent a year of discussing several management factors, along with Data DEC has collected. They took the collective information and crafted these solutions. I'll be honest my focus was not on creel limits but keeping steelhead to adult stage in the system on both the lake and tribs. And you can see that wasn't the direction DEC was willing to go. Reducing the brown trout limit from 3 to 1 on the tribs has been on and off the regs docket at least three times since 2003. We'l see if that has support this time. Our brown trout are getting hammered every day from Oct to December. As far as shutting down the tribs and beside the economic values nearly 2 million angler hours bring to the LO shore line, we don't have successful natural reproduction of Brown trout and steelhead in our south shore streams. And why NYS stocks them. Neither the lake or trib fishing would survive without stocking. Making shutting them down to fishing on non factor. And I would believe that lake anglers who don't fish the tribs find plenty of spring browns in trolling the shoreline as well as rainbows and steelhead during the late spring and summer. It's highly likely any adults of those species that were in spawning have been caught once or several times and are still in the system for the lake fishermen as well.

Hey nice to know I still have some fans on this site. Yes I sit on a Focus Group Panel with DEC, along with Vince, and Bob, and Tom A, and several others discussing management initiatives for the entire Lake Ontario fishery. We are fortunate to have the greatest 12 month a year sport fishery in the United States right here in our back yard. I say 12 months because from Sept. to the following April and sometimes May we have some of these sport fish in our tribs from the east end to the Niagara. For several years the efforts on the tribs has been about double the effort on the lake. There are rational reasons for that right? Much easier to come to a river or stream to fish, without having the investment in a boat and all the gear. But it's a fact that we have a very busy 12 month a year destination fishery. Travel the road ways in Oct and Nov along the lake and you'll see cars here from Montana, Oregon, Colorado, not to mention any state east of the Mississippi. We are now a destination for Brown trout, as we have the finest big brown trout fishery in the US. While we worry about forage for Salmon, Brown trout have a diverse inshore feeding diet that grows them big and fast. And yes the harvesting of brown trout for their eggs has become a bigger target it seems every year. That includes the milking of fish, or slitting their stomachs streamside which is illegal, (and I've personally had two groups ticketed this past fall calls to CO's)...but very hard to catch and control. The one brown trout limit for the tribs has been considered since 2003. DEC creel studies are starting to show trib anglers are more interested in C&R of brown trout. Steelhead: Again since 2003 Stakeholders have been asking DEC to consider a flat 25 inch size limit for Steelhead ...why? Because since 1983 when the Salmon River Hatchery started collecting data of all returning fish, Salmon and Steelhead they sized them along with other data. As of the information we have from the 2018 spring egg take of Steelhead, 98% of the adult spawning fish since 1983 till now are 25 inches and above. Hence true 3 year old's. Everybody like to have plenty of fish to fish to, but the tribs stakeholders are very interested in having trophy fish as well. Look at the LOC results of late. Last falls winning Steehlead was only 14 pounds.We used to catch fish much bigger in the 1990's and early 2000's. I've caught six true 20 pound steelhead in my life time. Five of them from Lake Ontario. In 2014 due to B1 deficiency problems with steelhead which DEC and USGS determined was consumption of highly toxic (to them) poor conditioned alewives, we lost a massive amount of our adult population of steelhead. So as of the spring of 2015 we essentially were starting over to replenish the future of steelhead for the entire fishery. While hoping younger Steelhead would survive. As of this fall and now winter fishing, I believe we are seeing encouraging results. However, remember we have a very highly used winter and spring fishery and in most of the open river systems anglers only have one fish to target. Steelhead. Much of the stream migration of brown trout is way over with a combination of over harvest and the fact that the majority of the browns have returned to the lake. So unlike the lake fishery where we never have only one species to fish for, in most cases for nearly four months trib anglers have one species to target. C&R. will be debated for ever. Here is one thing that can't be debated. If C&R is killing the fish in the tribs, there would be no hiding it. There would be scores of brown trout and steelhead laying right next to the tons of dead salmon who die in the tribs as well. And that just isn't the case. In 2014 when we had the massive die off of steelhead in the tribs there was no hiding it. I will admit it is much easier to handle a fish for release kneeling In a river than a boat, but I was a Charter operator for over 20 years, and have been trolling the lake from 1971 until now, and it's on you the angler to be responsible to handle a fish properly in your possession. So make sure any fish isn't banging around the desk of the boat or fingers aren't in gills etc. If properly handled these fish can survive the short time they are in 70 degree water. There IS oxygen in that water to allow them to recover. We've all experienced turning around to re-net a fish that we think is going to die, only to find the fish has vanished once we get back to where it was released. And I'm talking about any trout or salmon, not just Steelhead. Finally we have to stop being divided. I'm fully aware on the challenges both professionally and as a rec angler when trying to go catch fish. At this point DEC feels the proposed regs spreads the wealth of this entire 12 month fishery to simply have the opportunity to fish to fish. In the case of the lake Steelhead creel and avg party of four can still harvest 8 fish at 21 inches and over, yet still have slots to fill out their limit with other species. This keeps an additional 15% of the avg. harvest on the lake maybe in play for the fall, winter and spring river fishing.