Lamprey eels

[rustyrat]

They told us last spring they did not treat due to lack of funds for 2 years. That's besides the flooding. I was at the meeting. Also there is a boat load of them in fall creek. I saw them spawning spring 2013. <br />

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[LongLine]

Brief high water periods in 2007 and 2011 allowed limited numbers of adult lampreys from Cayuga Lake to escape over the fishway dam and spawn upstream in Cayuga Inlet. Preliminary results of recent electrofishing surveys in the Inlet indicate the numbers of juvenile lampreys produced in 2007 and 2011 were likely not large enough to require a lampricide treatment. Electrofishing surveys in Cayuga Inlet will continue in an effort to monitor the distribution and growth of juvenile lampreys produced in 2007 and 2011 and others that may follow.

 

 

http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/79746.html

 

If these guys are wrong, they need to be told.

 

Tom B.

(LongLine)

[Bigfoot]

The fisheries biologists admitted at the state of the lakes meetings that their assessments were wrong and that in hindsight  they should have treated the Inlet after the successful Lamprey spawn in 2007.

[rustyrat]

Yup. Not to mention I see far less lamprey scars on bows then browns, landlocked salmon and Lakers. <br />

They admitted it.in the spring state of the.lake meeting last year. They also said they didn't treat due to lack of funds. I live on the lake, I run charters on the lake and I fish the tribs hard all fall. It's a huge problem. There are very few browns and salmon left and the Lakers size is off by over 30%. <br />

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[stinger]

Wrong info??? We are making up all these stories? Not. 

 

...from post #27

 "Preliminary results of recent electrofishing surveys in the Inlet indicate the numbers of juvenile lampreys produced in 2007 and 2011 were likely not large enough to require a lampricide treatment. Electrofishing surveys in Cayuga Inlet will continue in an effort to monitor the distribution and growth of juvenile lampreys produced in 2007 and 2011 and others that may follow."

 

...who needs electrofishing when you have this method:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a8FbHPVvwY#t=1  (as posted by Ray on 9/15/2013)

 

How many more pics will it take to see what we are -itching about.

[Bigfoot]

I'm in total agreement that the lampreys have destroyed the fishery and that it is going to take years to bring it back.

 

Your statement that the treatment didn't happen 4 or 5 years ago due to high water is incorrect. And quote cited in post #27 is does not reflect current DEC thinking.

 

In the latest annual diary report for Cayuga Lake dated March 29,2013 Senior Aquatic Biologist Emily Zollweg-Horan wrote:

 

"In 2011, the regional fisheries unit conducted a standard gillnetting survey on Cayuga Lake to determine the density, growth rate and incidence of sea lamprey attacks on lake trout. A total of 399 lake trout were collected in 32 nets for an average of 12.5 lake trout per net. This average was slightly lower than the 13.4 lake trout per net average found in the 12 previous surveys dating back to 1976. The number of legal sampled (275) was the highest ever recorded for this survey, indicating an increasing biomass of larger lake trout in the population. Nine percent of caught were wild spawned fish, approximately half of which were under 12 inches, indicating a possible increase in natural reproduction in recent years.

 

Incidence of sea lamprey attacks in 2011 was very low. One wound and one mark were observed on the 46 lake trout in a 23.6 inch to 25.6 inch index group. This was well below our target level for lamprey wounding on lake trout in this interval. However, lake trout wounding rate for the 2012 egg take on Cayuga Lake was considerably higher, with 83 active wounds per hundred lake trout in the 25.6 inch to 27.6 inch index group. Sea lamprey wounding on Cayuga Lake salmonids increased in 2012 because of a fairly large year class of lampreys, born in Cayuga Inlet in 2007, migrated to Cayuga Lake as parasitic adults. We opted to "ride this out" and not do an expensive lampricide treatment because we anticipated the impacts to the fishery will not be as extensive as in the past. Although there were relatively abundant young sea lampreys (ammocoetes) in Cayuga Inlet, our assessments indicate they were not as abundant as they were prior to our treatments in 1986 and 1996 (see graph below). Given this, we had expected that the fishery should be able to absorb the impacts of this lamprey year class with far less mortality of trout and salmon than we experienced in the past. However, the recent wounding data and angler reports last season indicate that we were probably wrong in this assessment. (emphasis added) Unfortunately the abundance of sea lamprey larvae resulting from upstream escapement of spawning lamprey during a high water event in the Inlet in the Spring of 2011 is higher than the abundance of the 2007 year class. Plans are underway to conduct a lampricide treatment in 2014, before the 2011 year class matures."

 

If you fish with Cayuga with any regularity you should be keeping a DEC diary. They really need your input.

[fathobbit0074]

You guys get to keep your own eels!

[Nautitroller]

Great info Bigfoot! Just simply would like to see a decrease in the numbers of them ugly bastards.  My wife jumps up on seat and screams get that thing out of the boat,   now that would be a cool video!!!

[LongLine]

Wrong info??? We are making up all these stories? Not. 

 

Hey Stinger you missed my point.  The point was if you feel strongly that the DEC is wrong, then us guys need to speak up and tell them.  Not just complain from our computers on this thread.  Believe it or not the DEC does investigate issues more thoroughly when informed of them.

 

Tom B.

(LongLine)

[stinger]

Thank you. I stand corrected and your point is well taken.

[Xxx]

I watched the same program again today, and gathered some more info I missed before. They actually implanted a little chip into some of the females to see if they return to the same feeder stream each year, or do the travel to where the male hormone smell is the greatest. The one biologist mentioned that he can draw all the females into one feeder stream with this male colon if they will go up a different feeder stream that what they were born in. This is where the implanted chip will come into play, if he can draw these eels with a chip in from stream A up stream B and they will be able to track these eels if this pans out. They will be able to gather a very large portion of the eels in this area and dispose of them. Another problem they are having is there is a very big river that they spawn in between the US. and Canada, that's to wide and flows two much water for the lampracide (I can't remember the rivers name) but they came up with this yellow pellets which can be sprayed when mixed with water, this product settles to the bottom of the river and when the larva eat this stuff they die, and if they can get a better grip on killing the eels that spawn in this river Lake O will be pretty much under control. They mentioned that the fishing industry brings in over 7 billion in revenue and the total cost for the effort to control the eels is $500,000 million so they feel that they are a head of the game money wise. They also mentioned at the end of the show that you should keep track of how many eels you catch and report them to the nearest DEC officer and something will get done in that area, they want people to speak up, especially charter captains and fisher man being in contact with eels often, they said they want to know, because us folks know where the greatest concentrations of eels are, so we need to speak up!!