fisherman777

When you're referring to DEC, I'm assuming you're specifically meaning the environmental conservation officers (ECOs) and not the entire department of environmental conservation (DEC) as a whole, correct? Just for clarification for everybody that may be contacting their reps

It hit a moonshine casting spoon

Caught this one 4 years ago in oswego harbor at night fishing for kings. Peeled drag off at first like it was a 20 pound chinook.

Man I've never broken a j9 or j11 lip on the old or new ones. The j13s on the other hand...

It was a major league fishing (mlf) tournament with the catch weigh release format, so they were allowed to fish it before the traditional opener. Not without its issues as multiple anglers were penalized in that tournament for foul hooking fish off beds, catching the same fish more than once, etc. Maybe tourney fishing during the spawn in any format isn't the best idea...

I think a lot of the problem isn't necessarily fishing for spawning fish as it is catching a spawning fish, then taking it off it's bed down the river 10-20 miles to a weigh in, or taking it home to eat. All those eggs are Goby food unless the bass gets released back right away to guard its bed. The catch and release season has been in place a while now on lake erie without the population crashing, so one would think the st. lawrence would have something similar and maybe extend it till July as the spawn is later up there.

Would be a great idea. Canadian side already does this. Catch and release season from January 1st-May 10th, then closed to no fishing until first Saturday in July...makes a lot more sense to protect spawning fish up there as the majority spawn from mid may to mid june on the river.

Like others have said, get a musky sized bump board if you are consistently measuring bigger pike 40" plus. It will make your life so much easier and the fish won't flop off the board if you have a good grip on its gill plate. As far as girth measurements go, I just don't take them. Most musky guys talk in terms of length anyway. A 50 incher is a 50 incher regardless of how fat it is and I can live without knowing the exact weight on a fish. I'd rather handle it as minimally as possible. For solo pictures, invest in a tripod for your phone and have it set to a timer. Or better yet, get a new gopro that has the front camera screen. Hit record and hold the fish up for a quick video, then pull still photos from the video later on. I do this for all my solo musky shots and they turn out great.

The dec's strategy is not changing to rely on wild reproduction of chinooks to support the fishery. Stocking numbers are adjusted accordingly depending on bait levels and estimates of natural reproduction of chinooks but the fishery is still reliant on stocking.

Nice fish BTW lowjack12

This would be great. A simple slot of no kill for 30-35 inch fish or something similar could accomplish this in a lot of places.

It does affect them. Chinook and steelhead eggs are treated at the salmon river hatchery with thiamine during the egg take process to counter some of the effects of the parent fishes' diets. Before eggs were treated with thiamine, many of the hatched fry would experience developmental deformities in their early life stages. That being said, Chinook and steelhead seem to survive better in the lake eating an alewife based diet than atlantics do. Different fish and different tolerance to thiamine deficiency. All salmonid species out there are affected by thiamine deficiency though to some extent.