Genny 7/3/09

[LongLine]

LongLine : Fishing Report

Got up at 2:30, Launched at the River. Had 1st rod in the water by four. Man, is it dark & spooky out there, especially flying solo.

Headed slightly west to 40 FOW. Surface Low-mid 60’s. Guess there was a 1 1/2ft chop from the west with an occasional 3 ft’r. Put a spoon that I taped up this week approx 70 Ft behind the ball (similar to a Cartwright …..but different)

and zig-zagged my way out.

Lot of bait starting at about 60FOW but all near the bottom. Definitely start of Flea season.

The sun finally came up. (use your imagination – it’s there someplace)

This little King hit at 80 down over 95FOW. Nothing to brag about EXCEPT look at his fins. 14†& he has a full Adipose fin.

Anyways, figured that the bigger ones were a little deeper & maybe up a little in the water column, due to the cloudiness, I played the hunch & raised it up to 45 & continued zig-zagging in the 95-125FOW area.

Screen was clean except for the fleas past 110. Then in 105 FOW it fired. Haven’t had a hit like that since late last summer. This guy took line like nobody’s business. I had to turn around and chase him down as he took most of my 10 Lb line. (I could see the black of the spool so he had at least 220 Yds)

Unfortunately at that moment, my auto pilot (bungee) broke & the engine stalled.

Luckily he decided to turn & swim toward me so with a lot of cranking; I got my line back, even though it had some globs of fleas on it. Snapping the line in & out of the water cleared the fleas, as he quickly passed the boat & headed back in the other direction.

So I turned again to follow him & the engine stalls again. Oh well, guess I have to do something with that idle.

Anyways after a good 25 minute battle, I finally get him out from under the boat and in the net:

And a 2nd pic for ReelJerks:

23 Lbs on my scales. (A derby fish yet not a derby fish, as you can’t fly solo in the LOC)

Maybe again tomorrow, depends on the weather. (Nap time now)

Luck to all,

Tom B.

(LongLine)

[bretter]

nice job.you sound crazier than me.glad ya got him in the boat.where was your partner?

[momay4000]

Tom,

Way to go - to venture out solo that early with rogue 3-footers is impressive.

Even more impressive is your sportsmanship and honesty with your "potential" derby 23# king.

Thanks for the great and very detailed report.

- Chris

[oldtimer]

Great report, Tom! Ditto Chris' comment about giving you credit for going solo with the weather and the wave prediction report. Nice fish - great story!

Pat

[stan]

Great job there Tom , nice looking fish. Thanks for the pictures and report

[LongLine]

Thanx. Thought I'd go real early to miss the building wind. Partner had to work. Doesn't look good for tomorrow.

Actually, I'm more excited with the little guy having an Adipose fin. Caught one a couple weeks ago with one too.

Tom B.

(LongLine)

[Tangle Factor]

Nice job Tom. Thanks for the report and picturres.

Tom

Tangle Factor

[tree top flyer]

Hey Tom I think we were next 2 you when you brought the big one in? Was in the red and white 20ft wellcraft cuddy with the net up front.If that was you, one hell of a job in the waves by yourself We called it early, ticking sound in the engine

[REELJERKS]

Tom;

Whats got you excited about a full "I'm more excited with the little guy having an Adipose fin." ?????

am I missing something?

[Pike Hunter]

Beautiful King, Tom! Way to go. Thanks for sharing.

I have learned plenty from you. One thing stood out is that you took off at 2:30 a.m. and had your first rod in the water by four. Whoa! I thought waking up before 5 a.m. is early enough. Now you got me thinking differently.

Also, like Mark, please help educate the LOU about the adipose fin.

[fishman08]

natural spawn fish

[LongLine]

TTF – Yep that was me. 18 ft BlueFin, Red hat & knocking knees.

Mark - On the Adipose fins:

The NYSDEC used some of the Occidental Settlement money to purchase a specially equipped trailer a little while back. (1 ½ -2 yrs) This trailer has all kinds of electronic equipment in it & is used to automatically clip Adipose fins on the Kings that are to be stocked. They’re trying to study the degree to which natural reproduction is taking place on Lake Ontario. Some Natural Repro has been documented on the Salmon River on the East end and on the Credit River in Canada for a few years now. They also use the trailer to tag some of the fish.

They have taken the trailer to all Canadian and to all the US hatcheries. Every salmon that has been stocked in the last 1 ½ yrs in Big-O has gone through this trailer. These fish would now be shakers, roughly in the 10-16†size range.

The trailer handles them one at a time and sorts out any that are missed. Those that are missed are then hand clipped. DEC says that the auto portion is something like 99.99% effective and hand clipping is minimal.

As I see it, there are only 4 possible scenarios as to how there were two unclipped King shakers off the Genny so far this year:

1. The trailer missed a heck of a lot of fish. First, I doubt that very much. From listening to the guys at Ringwood and reading reports, people are very impressed with the efficiency of the trailer. Secondly, mathematically speaking, survival rate of stocked fish is not all that great. These two would have to have been in the minority to survive any stocking. On top of that & making the odds even worse is that one guy caught two of them within a mile of each other off the Genny, a couple weeks apart. (They were not the same fish) I have better odds at winning the lottery.

2. These two could have been Nat Repros from the SR or Credit. I doubt this very much as these little guys would have had to swim over 50 miles to get here. They would have been swimming up current and across some awful cold water to get here. Why would they swim from warmer water, across cold water to warmer water? I could understand the wandering nature of mature fish but these certainly aren’t mature fish and it’s not that time yet.

3. They could have been Michigan fish. I doubt this even more. Again, survival rate, much longer swim, across Lake Erie, the falls/canal, and there were two weeks between them and again, I caught two of them. (Man, the lottery odds look really good compared to those odds)

4. Which I do find possible, is that Natural Repro is taking place around or in the Genny. Even though the Genny has not been considered good spawning grounds, the sturgeon that were planted are doing well. Also the Walleye & Bass populations are now pretty good. In addition, more Atlantics are being caught along the Southern shore than in many years. No doubt, the waters have been changing.

That’s why I’m excited, as Fish08 said. I think Natural Reproduction of Kings may be occurring in our Central area.

Don’t get me wrong, I love catching slob Kings, but just think five years from now, we may well have to upsize our gear to land slob Natural-Kings.

Tom B.

(LongLine)

[tree top flyer]

Mabie we will get fish ladders some day up the falls and the DEC will finally fine every one snagging up there. My Great grandfather (who implanted the fishing bug in me as soon as i could walk) would not believe we catch eyes in the genny now days so anything would be possible. I saw the DEC had a net down in the river a little past turning point. Is there any site that gives data on the info they collect? With the family fishing out of henderson, the drive is to long with the hours i work and the genny has become my home port, like yourself im very interested in what goes on in the river.

[LongLine]

TTF - A DEC net? I hadn't heard that. If it is, then they're probably doing a fish survey. They did one a couple years ago out Webster-P'Ville way with the smallmouth.

DEC research reports are not all that easy to get. Analysis time, bureaucracy, staffing, peer review, etc, etc. Their webmaster is very late in posting stuff. I sometimes check their online monthly reports, but even these are a few months behind. If you go to their site & do some searches, you’ll find some interesting stuff, but like I said, it’s rarely current. The 2008 Lake Ontario annual report still isn’t online. I have it electronically & can send it to you if you want but I warn you it’s huge & loaded with numbers & statistics.

A fish ladder at Maplewood would be quite a project. We’ll never see it. Unfortunately the gov’ts of Rochester & Monroe County and local media don’t support the fishery. I think that is really sad. (Monroe County Fisheries Advisory Board doesn’t even have a website.) ESLO started here at the Genny & the Kings have been coming here to spawn well before the Pen Rearing projects.

There are some groups that have websites that touch the Genny subject such as:

http://rochesterenvironment.com/genesee_river.htm

and the Seneca Park Zoo, however, they just briefly get into it & don’t get into research. Also you can search on the USGS or USF&WS or GLFC sites under Genesee River but again, not all that current.

Sorry to hear about the engine noise. Good Luck with it.

Tom B.

(LongLine)

[Yankee Troller]

Just wait till the DEC finds out how much natural repro takes place. It will give them a reason to cut back the stocking!

[captpaul]

You said it Yankee, The state cut back stocking back in the lakt 80's early 90's and the fishing sucked for a few years. One or two years of less stocking seems to hurt for twice as many years.

[LongLine]

Rick

I don't think that'll happen. At this stage, I think is a very interesting abnormality. Look what happen to the alewife population 2 yrs ago. In 2008, from years at all time lows, the 2 yr olds jumped 600% but the yoy numbers went back down.

What they've documented is:

-that the SR is the best place on the lake for Nat Repro (bottom conditions, temperature, flow, etc);

-N.P. is not consistent year to year on the SR. (2008 report told of a year with a very poor showing on the SR.)

-Previous years on the SR were a real surprise, however survival numbers (which were best guesses by biologists) were small compared to numbers that were stocked to keep the preyfish in balance. i.e few thousand compared to the normal 1 1/2 million. That’s the reason for the trailer: to get a handle on what’s going on out there. The study will take years. The DEC requires data. Even VHS regs took 6 months & that was a “class A†disaster. (Natural repro is not a disaster; The Genny is not the SR & is still on the impaired water listing.)

Also, support of Sportfishing is solidly stated in the Great Lakes Objectives of every organization involved (Fed/State/provincial gov’ts, glfc, conservation groups, etc). To cut stocking would require a lot of groups to be involved.

Yes, the stocking was cut back years ago but that was due to the drastic reduction in preyfish abundance. (To prevent any crash like Huron had.)

As for some Naturals showing up this year I’m also quite happy because unfortunately last year’s stocking of kings was dramatically low due to the eye-up problem. Only 798K Kings were stocked. Any naturals, wherever they’re from, will augment the number of available trophy Kings a couple years from now.

Tom B.

(LongLine)

[borderline 350]

Dear Longline,

Nice report And kudo's to landing a nice chinook on 10 lb test! You certainly earned those fish with a lot of preparation! Just a word about Chinook and their movements. These fish have been documented by the Feds to travel 25,000 miles from the time of birth to spawning...approx 4 year olds)from The state of Washington to the Sea of Japan and return! They follow the food. The early radio transmitter studies on coho & chinook (in the early 1980's) on Lake Ontario revealed movements from Roch to Oak Orchard & then cross lake to Oshawa in a two day period and then back to the Rochester Area. These radio fish averaged around 2 MPH. I believe that these salmon will follow the food (alewifes)where ever it goes. And Chinook do come down from the upper GL stockings such as Lake Huron. I caught one in 1980 and so did "Roostertail" with Lake Huron clips off Braddocks Bay. The fin clips do tell interesting things. I hope you do win the lottery so you can afford an unlimited fuel budget for chasing Chinook.

Respectfully submitted,

Jet Boat Bill