All I can say is Thanks Again Mr. Zebra mussel, for cleaning up our Lake Ontario = less & unhealthy biomass = smaller Salmon, "according to this report".
But I do remember years back when the clouds of bait used to go on and on. I don't know about other parts of the lake but in the Oswego area, there are less bait. We used to catch them on our lures ALL the time. Not anymore.
And if these extreme cold winters keep going on...
Unfortunately the gov is probably counting big on natural reproduction, so they can invest less for stocking. Yea, reproduction is a good thing but it's not a sure thing.
Evolution.