Jolly II

In the cases of Lakes Michigan and Huron where there was a cash, their salmon showed signs of stress with poor body condition. This is not the case for Lake Ontario, body condition of our fish has been good and steady, that is the weight of a 36" fish. I'm confident that we have a good forage basin. Our lake is hard to compare to Michigan and Huron with it being the last and lowest Great Lake. Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United mobile app

I also have two in my basement that I just took off the boat I bought this fall. Keep posted incase Slimy Hooks can't find his.

Very good point Scott. That will be interesting data to look at. I'm sure the alewives took a helluva a hit last winter, but it's just hard to swallow their data sometimes after seeing what we saw this year. Now... back to the treestand!!

King Davy, thanks for posting this summary of the meeting. I attended Tuesday night and had some after thoughts concerning the bait fish abundance. I wish I had thought of this while at the meeting. I don't think Steve is trying to misrepresent what they are finding in the lake, nor do I think that those of us on our side of the table are wrong in what we've seen this year on the lake with the alewive abundance. I know Steve made the statement that their data collection process was auditted and found to be a sound scientific method, but that audit was conducted in the 2000's, long after Lake Ontario water was cleared up by filter feeding zebra and quagga muscles. I was out and about in the world in the 1990s with the U.S. Navy, and only fished the lake in the early 90s before the muscles took a strong hold in the lake. We all remember what the water clearity was like in the 1980s and early 90s, if you could call it clear, and was really surprised how clear the lake was when I started fishing it again in 2000. Here's my point on the water clearity. Many of the older guys remember a my uncle Tom Jolliff, DEC biologist at the Cape Vincent research station, and know he was a thorn in the DEC's side since the stocking cut backs in the early 90s, a biologist who was always on the fisherman's side. A salvage diver that he knew in the eastern basin region commented to Tom once about water clearity, and that they had to use lights on dives deeper than 60-70 feet, and now they don't use lights until they get down to 200 feet. Tom thought about that concept, and how clearer water may actually make the lake trawls less affective, becuase the alewives are able to see the trawl nets coming, and simply avoid the nets, making the data bias to lower than actual alewive abundance. I'm not sure if he ever wrote a paper on the subject, or had data to show that night time trawls could be more affected, but he strongly felt that their data is bias becuase the fish are just able to evade the net. When he suggested that they experiment with night trawls they pretty much told him the same thing we were told the other night, they there data collection is a sound scientific method. If you look the alewive abendance chart that was presented at the meeting, it's the same chart that is presented at every state of the lake meeting, you can see a gradual downward trend throughout the 1990s as the lake was becoming clearer, as more and more muscles colonized the lake. I'm sure there was drop in alewive abundance to do less food being available in the bottom of the food chain, but I'm sure Tom was on to something with this theory of net evasion also, and it's a theory that could explain the disparities in what the biologist data suggests and what us fisherman are actually seeing in the lake. Unfortunately this did not pop in my head until I was driving home late Tuesday night and digesting all that was discussed. Perhaps this question or theory could be pushed towards the biologist from a groupl of fisherman, like LOU, or groupl of captains, like the Genesee Charter Boat Assoc, and put some pressure on these guys to think outside the box on this, but likely won't happen. Again, thanks to Jerry and Sam for putting that together the other night.