ifishy

Both have a good reputation but after all the good years you got with the merc I say stay with them especially is there is local reliable service

Thats awesome I will likely now know that word forever. I now want screckstoff scent to put on my lures to signal predators of a feeding opportunity

Purely speculation but maybe clearer water means harder to hunt so more calories burned to eat thus a lower net gain. Also maybe more aggressive e faster growing fish are more likely to get caught so with a lower overall population quality fishing pressure has a bigger effect this has been seen in some smallmouth studies. I suspect that dec doesn't have clear understanding of why size I'd down which makes it tough to mitigate. As Yankee has mentioned in the past the dec has stated there is no research on selective hatchery breeding for salmon size so they don't do that, as stakeholders we should ask for that research. DEC has limited resources for what studies to run. They run fisheries throughout the state not just lake o and they have done good science and made good decisions accordingly. Lake o salmon size is a worthy endeavor to study and that what we should ask for with the understanding that it is not a fast study

I used to be a surgical technician and assisted with this surgery with multiple surgeons and multiple systems the one thing they all agreed on was that Physical Theropy is by far the most important factor. Get up and moving as soon as you can listen to your therapist and do the work if you do it is 100% worth it I have talked to many patients that said it was hard but it was the best decision they could have made and would recommend it. So if your ready for it do it as a fellow fisherman for what it's worth I'm in your corner

Yes fisherman follow reports but they were not following mine I had one of my worst years ever but I think k it was something I was doing wrong current guess is something electrical I did notice late summer my anodes were pretty corroded I changed them and had an improved couple trips will do some more investigation down that path yes many boats were in the bays but there were tons on the lake trolling and there wasn't a single day where I didn't have traffic affect my planned trolling path I don't know that fishing effort has increased in the last ten years but it has not fallen significantly honestly with inline boards and various junk lines even small boats can get an effective spread these days and it can be pricey but doesn't have be the dec is not run by political Conspiricy yes there is politics but the science heads are not elected so are not fighting for there jobs the science they put out is valid and often the recommendations that go with it are as well. the policy makers however do play to there voters and often use over gross over simplification of the science. The fact is a healthy sustainable population will use a diverse and variable cross section of the gene pool there are also factors that drive the expression of thegenes like prey abundance competition and environmental conditions so these fish could have all the abilities to get bigger but the conditions just aren't there and only changing conditions can bring back the size

Loneline I have to disagree about crowds I fought more boat traffic and launch traffic than ever this Year. I see a lot of posts on here that way over simplify the science and ignore some of the real life time lines of ecology size does not necessarily equate to fit from an evolutionary stand point and the lake is different than it was 20 years ago and different than it was in the 80s and 90s it stands to reason what it can support is not the same. There are more and bigger walleye than there was decades ago smallmouth are bigger but less of them (maybe) and if we went down the list every species has a different biomass and distribution than it did 20 years ago since the clean water act in the 80s the nutrient load in the lake has dropped steadily muscles compounded it gobys somewhat mitigated that but into a lower layer. Expect change and roll with it you will be less stressed the dec should do a study of selectively breeding the biggest fish dedicate maybe 5% of egg take to it and raise them all at the hatchery. To get any real results would need multiple generations so probably a 10-12 year study we should lobby for that experiment to see if managing it as a trophy fishery is actually an option

No experience with hornets but with bees I trow some seven powder at the opening at night when there calm blast it and run two days later nest is usually dead they track the powder in and all over and a takes a day or two to kill them but like I said never tried on hornets

I hate launching those years get the slime and rot on the trailer and I usually just wade to crank it on the trailer and sticking my feet it that is brutal nasty

I also have a set from here they are a quality item and excellent price can get different mouting options as well

the steel head are still suffering from that large die off several years back there are not a lot of fish in the lake more than 6 years old but with the cleaner water fish have to swim faster and farthur when feeding so there is some slimming in profile as well. this is really visable in steal head. for the brown there are still some pigs out there and they feed heavy on goby at times iI cant say there is as many as there was 5 or 6 years ago but the brown population in the lake is very heavy and with big fish at the top end for sure. its possible that there may be other tecniques that would better target those large ones in the current lake conditions and trolling just does not get as many of the slobs but that is pure speculation

Chinook daemon spawn once and die period they can mature early or wait an extra year there is always some variety in the age they spawn at that is normal variation meaning one catastrophic weather event wont make a population go extinct (hopefully) fore lake o when they started the majority ran the river when they were 3.5 yeas old so 3 full summers of growth over the years a growing percentage is maturing and spawning at 2.5 so one less summer of growth it might be that our hatcheries are less accessible to larger fish it might be that the areas that have natural reproduction are more accessible to smaller younger fish it may be that larger fish are targeted successfully by steam fisherman it could be that an extra year in the lake makes them more likely to be caught and kept it is probably a combination of those and other factors

with kings size is also partly a function of age. over the years a larger and larger percentage of Lake O fish are running at 2 years old instead of 3 and very few are holding out that extra year. the fact is that likely has its advantages in Lake O which is why its become more prevalent. the kings here now have been both artificially and naturally selected for better survival in lake Ontario under current conditions. the fact that we have notable if inconsistent natural reproduction speaks to that. new genetics would likely be far less advantageous and to get them established in the population would be significantly harder in time and cost than just adding some new eggs and any introductions would likely be gone within a couple generations. The fact is that lake Ontario is not the same as it used to be it is a changing and evolving ecosystem and it may not be able to have as many 30+lb fish. We also tend to have selective memory. 40lb fish happened but it was not an every year occurrence. Good hatches of alewives do not mean good year classes if recruitment is low. so if we had 3 large year classes as of this year than this years stockers would be the first to have access to that there whole life so we would see the size increase 2 years from now. the fact is the numbers in the lake of 2 year olds seems to be really high this year and is likely caused by good recruitment of natural fish due to increased bait abundance. The DEC has done a good job of using real data and science to manage the fishery and they have taken input from stake holders on what outcomes to target. Its easy to say things like they are small make them bigger but thats not how it works. I do think there could be some merit in running a multi year experiment to selectively pull older/larger fish for crossing and than tagging the young to see if they start to have a disproportionate representation in derbys or creates a small sub set of the population that goes 3 and even 4 years in the lake. It could be done on a small scale within the current stocking strategy and provide the data needed to determine if its worthwhile to try on a larger scale.