Sk8man

FishinFool - You should be able to tell by the insignia on top of the downrigger (if present). Here is what it looks like: otherwise it is a Mag 10

chugbug good points. As far as keeping the book dry I just keep it in a heavy duty Ziplock storage bag on the dash in back of my depth finder (protected by the windshield too

I forgot to add that at the end of the season you send your book in to the DEC office in Avon and a couple months later they send you a detailed report about stocking plans/levels, results of other fishermen as well as yourself, totals of fish and you are a number not a name so it is anonymous. They include data for all the previous years as well as a breakdown of species totals caught etc.

To get started you contact the DEC in your region (e.g. Region 7, 8 etc.) and make the request to be a Diary Cooperator. Tell which lake(s) you fish and they will send you the recording booklet, If you fill them up just call them and ask for another before the first one is finished. Tip: Don't forget to record ANY part of the data or they consider it useless and it doesn't count. It is easy to forget something like the end of time fishing They really need folks on about all the lakes and they base many of their decisions on the data so it would be advantageous for folks to get involved. Thanks. Sure. It is called Trout and Salmon Fishing Diary For Angler Cooperators. The DEC enlists volunteer fishermen to record data Regarding their catch of trout and/orsalmon on a given dtae. The data includes: # of anglers (say you have 2 people in the boat it counts as two people in terms of data so they double the hours fished etc. as though it was two separate fishermen) Date Water Fished: Specific Body (e.g. Keuka lake) Area Fished: (Bluffs, south end Hammondsport etc.) Time Started: (Times are important to the data collection and should always be filled in and either AM or PM circled)) Time Finished: (Times are important to the data collection and should always be filled in and either AM or PM circled)) Type of Fishing: (put X in box - options are: Boat, Shore, Ice, and No fish caught) Target Species: LT, BT, LL, RT etc. Fish kept or released Total Length Tag Number (if any) Weight: (only for fish kept) Missing Fins: (Any fin clips) Make sure to WRITE "NO MARKS" for unclipped fish if it is left empty the assunmption is that you didn't look or else forgot to record) Remarks:

You are right about the water clarity and necessity to get the lures away from any turbulance or commotion and I have never caught fish there on real big lures like magnums either. The browns do frequent the area you mentioned in the Spring especially probably with the hopes of scarfing up on some rainbow spawn from Guyanoga Creek. I used to fish it before they posted it up making it impossible to enter or navigate without tresspassing now but there used to be browns mixed in with the rainbows there during the rainbow spawn. They may also have been stocked near that area at the state launch ramp so returns in the Fall are also possible.

I agree Bigfoot. That was one of my points above and it should be noted that at the height of the diary collecting (1980 and 81 for instance) there were 70 or so diary keepers using various harvesting methods (e.g. trolling,stillfishing, pulling copper, jigging, and night fishing as well) and even 81 diary cooperators in 1995 but as of 2016 there were 34 and instead of over 2,000 fishing trips total during the 80 and 81 and 94,95 years there were only 411 in 2016. The data therefore is very different numerically as well as with respect to the actual type of fishing going on now. When you generalize ressults from a sample of people it needs to be truly representative of who they are and what they are doing and it is my belief that the current results do not accurately reflect this. On top of this a lot of times diary information received is incomplete some of which can't even be used or included because of the omissions. Hopefully some of the suspected shortcomings of the process will become apparent to DEC either in emails submitted by fishermen or in the context of their intended public meeting in June. Although the conditions have changed greatly in Keuka and actually most of the Finger Lakes since about 1995 with some exception years it is my belief that there are still landlocks and rainbows and maybe browns but they are fewer in number and seem pretty scarce now and don't have the forage base they once had in the areas they generally inhabit and these areas are now covered with zebras.. As this has been happening (i.e. the decreasing numbers) most folks have either fished other lakes for them or they have switched to laker jigging and/or perch fishing. My hunch is that many of the diary cooperators may have switched gears along the way too because when I have fished there we were often the only boat trolling ...the others were moving around but seemingly "looking" for fish or anchored jigging out deep. Historically (I have fished there since 1968), most of the rainbows I've caught out there either came from Seth Green rigs out deep or trolling with boards in the shallower sections while browns came from the more southerly areas toward Hammondsport and largely stillfishing with smelt or sawbellies. The landlocks I've caught have come usually with lines run way back off boards or downriggers within 80 ft down to the surface. Jigging while drifting or anchored (and often in very confined areas (e.g. the bluffs) would probably only catch occasioanl or "accidental" fish compared with specifically targeting them trolling covering vast areas of water.The smelt seem to be pretty much non-existant now and very few folks seem to fish this way anymore andthe browns despite being opportunists and having aa varied diet may not have the food available in those areas anymore. In the 70's and 80's many of the old timers caught both rainbows and browns accidentally while pulling copper within 75 or less ft along the shoreline along with lakers but much of the really good fishing was still fishing at night and it was successful for nearly all species of trout as well as a few landlocks once in awhile and that is now a thing of the past as well and so is the potentilal data from it. Keuka used to have a very strong nocturnal feeding population.

I hear you Nick and I agree.

I don't think the problems with the fishery itself are the result of any one year occurance - it is something that is multifacted and ongoing for quite a few years. I'm not so sure the DEC has a very good handle on what is actually going on out there either. From a common sense standpoint it could be a combination of a host of things such as the 2013 and 2014 cold tough winters having adverse impact on young alewife especially, increased predation from too many lakers, too many perch eating alewife eggs (they eat each others eggs by the way), but more than likely the biggest culprits are the Quagga and Zebra mussels and other predacious organisms severely reducing the levels of phytoplankton and zooplankton (and along with it levels of chlorophyl necessary for phytoplankton) necessary to sustain the alewife population. The mussels may also be forcing the fish and bait to go deeper because of the mussel carpeted bottom structure and unfortiunately the Quaggas are deep water dwellers so there is no "escape". The unfortunate thing is that when things get greatly out of whack in the extremely lower levels of the food chain the organisms above that level usually gradually decline to a certain point and then really tank as they become less able or even unable to reproduce in sufficient numbers to maintain their populations. The foodweb is totally interrelated and dramatic changes in any segmenrt of it can disrupt the entire process.

jk1 they did indeed have a comment about the alewives : " While the data analyses are incomplete, observations suggest that alewife abundance has significantly decreased, lake trout are feeding primarily on mysis or freshwater shrimp, lake trout abundance is at its lowest level in 30 years, and brown and rainbow trout and Atlantic salmon continue to be a minor component of the fishery" They further speculate that the combination of invasive mussels and cold winters have negatively impacted the alewives for some time.

I recently received my angler diary results report back from DEC for Keuka, Canandaigua and Seneca. A couple things stand out that folks should be made aware of: There were 14 brown and 13 Atlantics total caught of 1,316 salmonines and all of them by ONE PERSON. Here is the statement that follows "The original goal of the brown trout and Atlantic salmon stocking programs were to add diversity to angler catch. If the anglers in the diary cooperator program are representative of all Keuka Lake anglers, then the diversification goal is not being met. Serious consideration for discontinuing stocking is warranted and will be discussed below Only 6 rainbow trout were caught.all naturally reproduced (no clips). Here is what is mentioned "below" : "We are planning to have a Keuka Lake State of the Lake meeting in June at Keuka College to update conditions of Keuka Lake since our last meeting held in 2012". One of the things that immediately struck me about their conclusion is that a) there are only 34 diary cooperators for Keuka snd even though it may be a large enough minimal sample statistically there is a major practical problem here in that most folks now fishing Keuka aren't TROLLING for multispecies they are JIGGING for lakers so this severely skews the results. For those of us fishing Keuka it may behoove us to contact Brad hammers the Senior Aquatic Biologist with input His email address is : [email protected]