ut_falcon

Wawa Ontario north shore of lake Superior this year, multiple 30 pounders weighted in, here's a few. My opinion has changed but now I think its purely a numbers things, good amount of bait in Lake Ontario, massive amount of salmon = smaller fish. Natural reproduction in the past few years has skyrocketed, look at the ridiculous number of fish running the ganaraska, I've never seen it like that before. I think lake Michigan with the 47 pound chinook a few years ago and now lake Superior prove beyond a doubt its not genetic, its predator/prey balance. We just need to decide if we want more fish or bigger fish, Lake Ontario is still the best ecosystem for chinook of the great lakes in my opinion.

No one is talking about what happened on Lake Superior this year, they had record hatches of Cisco a few years ago and this year the salmon were pushing 40 pounds, bigger than any other of the great lakes. We're talking average derby winner a few years ago was 15 pounds up to 39 pounds doubling in size in a few years, they've never had huge salmon like Lake Ontario until this year.

Interesting thing is although the worldwide average temperature may be increasing the temperature trend in eastern North America is actually flat, you can find this in the literature about climate change online but the media doesn't like to report on it since it's not a catchy story they can sell. Have a look at maximum ice cover on Lake Ontario since the mid 80's its actually pretty consistent with cold and warm years but overall trend is flat. We're still feeling the after effects of the cold winters in 2014/2015 in my opinion as we had 30# salmon hitting the boards in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013. Michigan had a size rebound so don't know about natural selection for size being a factor since they can still produce a 47 pound king. There seems to be a fair amount of bait still in the lake so I don't know what's going on really, I thought we'd see bigger fish this year based on the last few winters.

For what it's worth If you look at the 2018 YOY salmon river seining catch rate it was the lowest since 2008 and 2017 was average to slightly above. Added to the reduced stocking over the last 2 years it indicates we should see fewer fish next year but potentially more 4 year old fish. Lake Ontario was also hit harder proportionally by the winter of 2014/2015 than lake Michigan. It's possible that Michigan has recovered quicker than Ontario due to that, just a theory though, we'll see next year. It sounds like 2019 was a good hatch of wild salmon so it's not all doom and gloom but maybe a temporary reduction of fish in the lake for the next few years. But who knows, nature is a hard thing to predict sometimes, I'll be fishing either way. On another note the biggest salmon in 20 years were caught in lake huron and Georgian bay derbies this year so bait has definitely rebounded. its mostly smelt now in Georgian bay but lots of it marked in the last few years.

I was talking about Atlantics being caught in Adolphus / Quinte, that's what the distribution map that was posted was showing the highest concentration. I know lots of lakers are caught in the east end around the Gap but never heard of an Atlantic caught there.

How many fish were tagged? Were they tracked by the receiver network or by the pop off trackers? I've never heard of one being caught in the bay of quinte and that's where the map shows the highest concentration of fish.

Is down the St Lawrence river belly up a valid choice?

What's the shallowest you'd run them? Do they work in the spring in shallow or more of summer tactic?

I'm going to say 1-2 weeks, he was probably timing his way around the north shore with the net pen releases, kinda like making your way around the buffet table.

Here's an image I created showing end of march conditions for Lake Ontario going back to 2007. The images vary by a few days each year due to cloud cover I tried to pick the clearest image to show the year to year changes. Lots of ice in the north east corner of the lake this year but lots of rain over the weekend has it melting fast.

The best fishing in years did not occur on the north shore of the lake, its pretty clear the conditions this year kept the majority of salmon on the south shore. I'm skeptical about another 20% cut being needed (40% total now) with no additional cuts to lakers. You can't argue depleted baitfish while pushing the laker numbers that just smells of an agenda. We are still seeing the effect of the cold winter on chinook size, let's see what happens next year. If size is up its because of the last few warm years and nothing to do with stocking cuts.

I'd like to see both the NYDEC and OMNR publicly release the forcast algorithm so we can see what factors go into their decisions. This information should be available to the public if they want our trust.

The Huron/Ontario comparison is not valid, just look at the whitening event and algea blooms on Lake Ontario this year there's a massive amount of food for the baitfish this year. It doesnt sound like they are doing another 20% cut to lake trout. Chinook and lake trout cuts need to be done equally if only to show they are not favoring lakers. Does anyone know if that's the case?

This already happened in canada, browns were moved to a less suitable hatchery as well to make way for more atlantics.