Time for the NYSDEC and OMNR to increase Chinook numbers

[ut_falcon]

Right but they don't know what increasing that minute population of Cisco will do to the Alewifes.  The Kings in Lake Huron and Georgian Bay weren't very adaptive when the Alewife population crashed, most of them starved to death.  Some did adapt and switch to eating smaller baitfish, but that reduced the average size of the salmon to half of what it used to be.

 

I agree that it doesn't sound like the Cisco program will have many negative effects on the salmon but its a pretty big gamble to start experimenting with the lakes ecosystem when what we have now is working.

[DNRoch]

The concerns that are being posted on the increasing thc cisco numbers are really not well founded. IF at best the deep water cisco population will stop any future invasives that can live at the depths that they can, that is basically a win. I am not impressed with the alewives, and the solution to them is the Kings and Coho, but to associate a gamble with the re-introduciton of native fish, and not think that there was a ton of learning from the Huron and Michigan issues, that is very narrow minded. The crash of the baitfish is well studied, but it was not realted to the introduction of native species....

[GAMBLER]

When they add 300,000 more lake trout to Lake Ontario, they will eat more bait plain and simple. The problem with lake trout is the number of years they spend in the system. Kings live 3-4 years. If we were to have another bait crash, the stocking would be cut and you would see the salmon out of the system after 3-4 years. The laker numbers would still be high for years after the salmon numbers decreased. IMO there is no need for more lake trout in lake ontario. Too many and it will be a lot harder to react to a bait issue.

[darryl choronzey]

The thiamine issue has been figured out, and there are more and more Atlantics that are returning every year for the past few year. The goal is to continually release native fish back to Lake Ontario, but there has never been a move to cancel the Pacific stockings. It is true that they do very well in the food chain in following the alewives, but at the same time there is a push to re-introduce deepwater Ciscoes as well. Those are the bait fish that everything in the food chain does the best when feeding. The alewives that are in LO. are controlled mostly by the silver and king salmon, Steelhead and Atlantics seem to be more opportunistic feeders, and not keying in on the alewive, but from a health perspective, the alewive is basically a stick of pepperoni vs the Cisco which is like a protein enhanced chicken breast. The oil content that is in the alewive is not the best for large predators like the kings and cohos, but they eat a ton of them. If these fish were to feed on the ciscos they would all be much bigger and healtier as compared to a diet based off of alewives. Will we ever get there, not in my lifetime, but potentially in my grand-kids lifetime. 

 

 

 

Whoa  buddy.  Your facts are so far out on the Province of Ontario's Atlantic program I would think you must be one of those paid propaganda guys who have got a vested interest in this dud of a creature.

 

For starters the thiamine problem in the wild has never been figured out to allow successful self-sustaining self-reproduction. When they feed on a diet of alewife which they do not enough eggs will hatch a live to propagate and that's a fact. Roger Greil at Lake Superior State was losing from 85 to 100 percent of his eggs taken from wild fish without treating them when alewife were the main forage.. He also sat in a meeting with Ontario MNR bosses and explained even with the alewife collapse in Huron if he quit his stocking program the Soo's atlantic fishery would die with a few years of him shutting down his hatchery.

 

 

Also Ontario's returns have never been good with Atlantics never, never , never....

 

We've stocked approixmately 8 million Atlantics from fry to advanced yearlings since 1987.  Two years ago they dumped almost a million alone into the Credit River and what did they get back to their main stocking river in the recent past....33 atlantics in 2011,  20 atlantics in 2012 and a whopping 9 fish in 2013 . All to the first dam and fish trap at Streetsville.  And People Have The Nerve To State The Atlantic Program Is Getting Better Here In Ontario???

 

Eight million frigg'n Atlantics stocked and 11 came back to Streetsville last autumn..  And what a sport fish... our two top charter boaters Randy Scott and Wayne Andrew caught a total of 3 Atlantics all last year.

 

In Ontario our Atlantic salmon program is based on broad stock and there are now more than 7,800 Atlantics being babysat around the clock for egg purposes

 

How dumb the program is on our side is the fact that the rivers used are not  anywhere near what they were when the fish first went extinct back in the 1880's. Atlantics go poof (like in death) when they have to try and survuve in water warmer than 75 degrees. When those fish that do survive to come home in the summer, the Credit rises as high as 80 degrees in the lower stretches....Campbell's Cream of Atlantic Soup anyone????. The brain trust behind this program just don't seem to know what a thermometer is or possibly how to use it.

 

The three strain LaHave, Sebago and Lac Jean are actually midgets when you compare them to steelhead , browns and salmon...and that's if they survive...which they don't...at least not on the Canadian side

 

I'm was asked to post on this subject by a few members, but really don't want to keep it going with the perch just starting to  bite down here on lake erie.

 

Here on the Canadian side we've put millions of dollars into this program and it's getting worse and more expensive every day.  You might hear a lot about non-profit fishing organizations getting involved...but guess where their millions are coming from....Ontario Power Generation, The Liquor Control Board of Ontario and the Trillium Foundation....all run by the province of Ontario and the funding comes out of the taxpayers' pocket one way or the other.  It's a very, very expensive blunder over here in Ontario and they keep bumping up  the numbers stocked annually as they go along.

 

Anyways below is a post that I put together on Spoonpullers with a very , very long report on this idiocy which we call  the Ontario Atlantic Salmon Restoration program... I believe they had more than 21,000 views and 450 posts from dissatisfied Ontario anglers.  You should be able to click on the site below, if not I can send it over in another format

 

Important to remember... be very careful the stories you hear on the success of the Atlantic salmon in Ontario...there is a lot of pay cheques and reputations involved on the other side of the fence.  The thiamine problem has not been figured out and Atlantics are not on the increase.......of course the way they keep bumping the stocking numbers up and are now stocking right around a million a year between the MNR and their partners they just might even go up to a hundred or more caught fish down the road and that's still a joke.

 

Hope you guys can read the full report on the site below, If not I can re-post it....It's a horror story trust me. It's totally amazing how a few in Ontario's government can get away with this...Actually you could say it a crime.

 

http://www.spoonpullers.com/index.php/topic,19871.0.html

Edited May 23, 2014 by darryl choronzey

[KING ME]

  darryl choronzey

Question for ya - answer when you can i know the perch are biting -lol. Has any organization or individual done any reports or studies to show the economical impact that the sport fishery has on The Canadian economy? and when i say organization i am referring to none governing one such as a charter club, fishing club, etc.?

[KING ME]

When they add 300,000 more lake trout to Lake Ontario, they will eat more bait plain and simple. The problem with lake trout is the number of years they spend in the system. Kings live 3-4 years. If we were to have another bait crash, the stocking would be cut and you would see the salmon out of the system after 3-4 years. The laker numbers would still be high for years after the salmon numbers decreased. IMO there is no need for more lake trout in lake ontario. Too many and it will be a lot harder to react to a bait issue.

brian -stop posting and start fishing! Go hit wautoma hard! that way the  kings can feed heavy and be 40lbs this fall. lol 

seriously your post is so true about the lifespan and effect > 

Edited May 23, 2014 by KING ME

[LongLine]

Here’s some interesting sites with information on some of the questions raised in this thread.

 

Ciscoes require cold well oxygenated lakes with little nutrient:

http://hatch.cehd.umn.edu/research/fish/fishes/cisco.html

 

Ciscoes high in Omega-3 fatty acids & rare to show contaminants:

http://www.seagrant.umn.edu/fisheries/eat_fish

 

Kings & Cohos do eat them (Scroll down the article)

http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/seagrant/GLWL/Fish/salmonids/salmonids.html

 

Here’s Alewife & bloater history in Lake Huron.  Pages 9 & 10 graphic history most interesting.  Alewife Crash was in 2004 & bloaters took off.

http://www.glsc.usgs.gov/sites/default/files/product_files/2012LakeHuronDemersal.pdf

 

This one shows Huron’s King stocking history:

http://www.michigandnr.com/fishstock/default.asp

I copied to excel, sorted & summed– here’s the tally.

 

• 1997

• 6,672,382

• 1998

• 6,845,225

• 1999

• 5,511,514

• 2000

• 5,805,742

• 2001

• 5,731,282

• 2002

• 5,301,568

• 2003

• 5,702,599

• 2004

• 5,543,022

• 2005

• 5,601,652

• 2006

• 3,504,396

• 2007

• 3,423,670

• 2008

• 3,424,365

• 2009

• 3,401,146

• 2010

• 3,383,344

• 2011

• 3,345,254

• 2012

• 2,655,648

• 2013

• 1,597,776

 

 

The DNR apparently just kept “dumping in†Kings even after they had the data that showed the crash.  I’m almost afraid to look back in the OMNR archives and see how many our Atlantic hating friends on the other side of the fence kept putting in.

 

Something I think we should remember about Lake Ontario…It’s a different ecosystem and because something happened in Huron doesn’t it’ll happen here.

 

Tom B.

(LongLine)

[GAMBLER]

I would be Steve but work keeps getting in the way! 

[darryl choronzey]

Longline, if you look hard at the Great Lakes stocking report you will see that Ontario as a government stocked absolutely no chinook or coho whatsoever in Lake Huron or Georgian Bay, Two volunteer clubs on Huron stocked approximately 150-200,000 chinook for a few years and one club on Georgian Bay stocked approximately 150,000 a year.

 

What few people understand is the fact that Huron/Georgian Bay had nowhere near the fertility of lakes Michigan, Erie or Ontario.  There was less of a  phosphate load and less alewife and smelt numbers than Lake Ontario and the fish were a lot smaller on average than Lake Ontario. When the zebra mussel and others invaded Huron the water cleared fast and smelt and alewife numbers collapsed and the sport fishery with it.  

 

It can be said that perhaps too many chinook were planted in Huron and that was nearly all by Michigan, but it's important to remember that Huron was never ever as fertile and bait rich as lake Ontario

 

So  don't be too worried as you so 'put it'...."our Atlantic hating friends" on the  other side of side of the fence kept putting in"...because it certainly wasn't much if anything at all.

 

Personally I'm not really an Atlantic hater....I just don't like My Government stocking 8 million fish, wasting two hatcheries, wasting fishing opportunities, wasting fishing opportunities and loosing possible revenue from what could be a vibrant fishery all for the return of 11 Atlantics back to the Credit River last year.

 

The project in my opinion is idiotic on My side of the border...but I've never, ever criticized anything on how New York runs their fishery. I appreciate it and what it gives us on the water

 

 

By the way settle your fears or doubts and  take the time to check it out for yourself   http://www.glfc.org/fishstocking/exactsearch.htm

Edited May 24, 2014 by darryl choronzey

[DNRoch]

So let me correct you on a little one of your lines there darryl choronzey... First I am only providing facts from the US side of the house not the Canadian side. I don't have access to that data as I do here in NYS with a quick phone call to 2 professors at Cornell as well as to 2 biologists and the Salmon River Hatchery Coordinator, so I really suggest that you keep your little ego in check and read before you attack someone or you will be viewed here on this site like your show is in Canada, (we call it cancelled here in the states, not sure what it is called in Ontario).

 

The data on the US side of the house is much better then what is happening to the north. The Salmon river is seeing returns in the hundreds and is growing. I would suspect that the larger tribs like the Genny and Niagara are also seeing returns, but since there is no way to count those fish unless they are caught, it really cannot be a factor in the grand scheme of things. I personally know of 3 tribs that are also seeing returns but they are very small in size so we will not mention them here, yet there is still natural reproduction going on. Will it ever be 100% self sustaining? Let's say I am not willing to take that bet at any odds, but if there is Natural reproduction of Atlantics, there is also reproduction of Kings, Coho, Steelhead, Browns and lakers... The Salmon river is the Key to the US side of the lake, without it NYS is dead in the water.

 

The closing of sections of the Salmon River, plus with min. water flows has helped. The thiamene Baths of the fry have helped here as well, and the bast part is now that the Atlantics have 2 sources of prey that don't actually have the Vitamin B1 that enhances the Thiamine Deficiency, the goby and the Cisco.... If these fish will feed on those 2 sources over the Alewive, there is the solution, the problem is that the alewive is PLENTIFUL!!! It isn't going anywhere, it is not BOOMING, its not shrinking at an alarming rate, it is steady... The problem is that Atlantics, and others develop a Thiamine deficiency when eating items high in B-1. The direct solution is to give the predator fish a non B-1 food, thus the re-intorduction of the Ciscoes and another invasive... the goby.

 

It is too bad that the US is more successful than the MNR in Ontario, but there are other things that can be done to help like decreasing the temps of the rivers by adding cover, changing top fed power feed to bottom feeds (that is costly and someone will have to pay for that)...

[darryl choronzey]

  darryl choronzey

Question for ya - answer when you can i know the perch are biting -lol. Has any organization or individual done any reports or studies to show the economical impact that the sport fishery has on The Canadian economy? and when i say organization i am referring to none governing one such as a charter club, fishing club, etc.?

 

Steve, the Canadian Tackle Manufactures put one out a few years back on Canada as a whole.  Nothing from any other non-governments.  I haven't had a chance to go over this board in a while, but Ontario is drawing up a new set of plans or or Provincial Fish Strategy that is real scary.  I believe the value is noted in there and most of it seems generated in the north country and I would imagine more from Erie that Lake Ontario.

 

If you guys want to look it over, you can see the intent seems to be a lot more emphasis on natural native stockings for everywhere especially in the Great Lakes...More lake trout, more sturgeon, more (duh) Atlantics.  The shift could be away from Pacifics (chinook, coho, steelhead) and brown trout.

 

Trust me, nothing, absolutely nothing that happens on this side of the weather marker would surprise me....but it won't be good.

 

Here's the link to look it over.....it is not going over well on this side with the people that have taken the time to look it over

 

http://www.ebr.gov.on.ca/ERS-WEB-External/displaynoticecontent.do?noticeId=MTIwODEx&statusId=MTgwODU4&language=en

[darryl choronzey]

DNRoach, here in Canada when you can pay the bills, you are never cancelled...it's call 67 and bad knees.

 

Anyways, I was just explaining here in Ontario  and it is not funny it is a mess.

 

And really though you can't say they have the thiamine problem figured out at all.  They know what causes the problem, but have absolutely no way of preventing it's deadly affects on returning fish , outside the hatchery laid eggs.  Thiamine baths are great in a confined hatchery, but impossible in the wild.

 

As for the Credit River, visit it one day. Urban sprawl, runoff, filtration plants etc just continue to make it worse as a target Atlantic rehabilitatiion stream.  Truthfully, you could call it the river of no return.

 

Your own fisheries people realize that we are eons away from making a suitable forage fish available in enough numbers to eliminate the problem.

 

Like I said, I've never knocked New York's fisheries program , which is far and above my side of the border.  But I do quite a bit of conversing back and forth with officials around the Great Lakes and only in Ontario does it seem that  natural self-sustaining reproduction is the goal, while our American  counterparts strive to provide a sport fishery first, rewards from the economy second and then natural reproduction.

[ut_falcon]

2.3 billion goes into the Ontario economy from sport fishing, over 600 million per year from the great lakes fishery & 70 million per year generated from licence revenue.  The amount that the Ontario government puts back into the recrational fishery is pathetic at best compared to what NY state contribues to the lake.  We are lucky to stock one fifth the number of fish into the lake compared to NY state and now a greater and greater percentage of that contribution is from Atlantics that die before they make it out into the lake.

 

http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/en/Business/GreatLakes/2ColumnSubPage/STEL02_173913.html#Recreational_Fisheries

[ut_falcon]

The concerns that are being posted on the increasing thc cisco numbers are really not well founded. IF at best the deep water cisco population will stop any future invasives that can live at the depths that they can, that is basically a win. I am not impressed with the alewives, and the solution to them is the Kings and Coho, but to associate a gamble with the re-introduciton of native fish, and not think that there was a ton of learning from the Huron and Michigan issues, that is very narrow minded. The crash of the baitfish is well studied, but it was not realted to the introduction of native species....

 

When did I ever say there were no learnings from the Huron and Michigan issues?  I said that when the chinooks ran out of food on huron they did not "Adapt" to other food sources very well and most died.  How do you personally know that the chinook in lake ontario will adapt to this new food source and how can you say it's not a risk to the alewife population that is currently sustaining the healthy chinook population in the lake???  Point is you don't know, no one does, only thing we know is the lake is currently healthy.

[Gill-T]

Personally, I am not concerned about the bloaters.  Either they will make it or they won't.  In nature a diversified ecosystem with more players is always a healthier system.  A variety of baitfish is good.  Over the years we have lost some diversity with decreases in Emerald Shiner, Sticklebacks, Spot-tailed shiners and Smelt populations on Ontario so bring on more bloaters.  The lake is o'changing.  On Erie we are seeing huge increases in smelt, perch and gizzard shad....and now invasive Rudd.  Nobody can foresee the future completely, however, the population of the GTA is only going to get bigger which means more organic stuff dumping into the lake from all the Canadian bacon they eat.  More nutrients means more baitfish so you need more apex predators to balance things out.

[YodaMage]

Numbers like that tell part of nothing..

 

"Over one million people annually participate in recreational fishing in Ontario. More than 30 per cent of those people fish the Great Lakes and its tributaries. Great Lakes recreational anglers spend over $600 million dollars yearly on items such as equipment, transportation, food and lodging."

 

OK, so evaluating just that statement. How many would participate regardless of species available. An unknown. Great Lakes anglers spend $600 million yearly on equipment (how much would still be spent..how much is spent JUST for great lakes fishing, how much is spent locally vs. ordered online in this day and age having no effect locally). Transportation means what exactly and who is the beneficiary? Gas stations? Gas stations definitely contribute nothing to the local economy... Food and lodging is at least real, but how is it determined what is driven directly by great lakes fishing only?

 

 

 

 

 

I don't have a horse in this race and realize many of the posters on here do. The charter guys who make a buck off the lake predominantly. That said, I'd love to see a real study of this issue with most of the special interests and politics removed. At the end of the day, that which makes the lake healthiest long term, sustainable long term and does so with the smallest impact on the tax payers as a whole should be the direction taken. If that is returning native species that will allow much of the stocking to someday be shut down, then so be it. If that is exterminating or reducing alewives so be it as well. I'm fine letting the biologists make that call, not the politicians as long as that is who is making it.

 

Just my .02 

Edited May 24, 2014 by YodaMage

[canadadude]

I've been following this thread and find it funny that certain person's think Ontario is getting out of the Pacific Salmon, non-native trout stocking for Lake Ontario, I read the fisheries proposal and it has not changed much of anything the OMNR has been doing for the last 30yrs. The OMNR has always promoted native sustainable fisheries for the last 30yrs,but still has Stocked Lake O and that will not change in the forseeable future or ever. Our resident OMNR critic, Mr Choronzey is fear mongering and spreading his opinion again as the facts of OMNR fishery plans. Ontario's involvement in the stocking of Pacific Salmons will be around for a long time. 

 

The Atlantic program is still in it's infancy really and has not been very successfull to this point with numbers of returns and such, but it is far from being a complete bust as some would like to think. This program has finally put much needed $$$$$ into the restoration of our few remaining cold water streams and rivers. The Credit for example has gone from an urban ditch in some areas to viable river, the Atlantics may not like yet, but record numbers of wild Steelhead seem to be happy with the changes being made. The program has also got the general public interested in restoring and protecting our urban watersheads, salmon hatchery's in schools our teaching our kids the importance of our water resources. In my opinion sometimes the you have to look deeper then just numbers to see benefits of a program, I guess we could just stuff our river's with a bunch of croaker rainbows, but I like catching wild Steel so much more.As for the state of our fishery I have very little to complain about, there are still plenty of Kings out here off St Catharines, a little late showing up this spring but 6-8 nice fish for 2 guys on a morning troll is still pretty good fishing. 20 fish days on the Credit with 15+ being wild Steel is ok for this guy. The Atlantic program is great amunition for the OMNR haters, but when push comes to shove we still enjoy a pretty good fishery, unfortuneatly Chronozey and the old boys will hate on the OMNR for the rest of there lives, it is what it is, I've been listening to it for 30yrs, same crap different day

[ut_falcon]

I brought up those number to show that the ontario government benifits from the recreational fishery at least as much as the ny government yet puts less back into the fishery. That 2.3 billion and 600 million is taxed at 13 percent not to mention the gas tax for the boat and to get to the water. The 70 million in licence fees is all supposed to go back into the recreational fishery yet its very difficult to see exactly where that money is being spent. I don't think its unreasonable to want to know or care about where my money is being spent. It would be nice to have a say in where the money is going instead we have those decisions being made for us.

[ut_falcon]

Just wanted to say that I'm not a charter captain or biologist and I don't have any hidden agendas in this, just a fisherman who cares about what happens to the future of our fisheries.  I didn't belive what Darryl was saying about the Atlantics until I started reading the MNR documents for myself and started to see what was really going on and direction that our fisheries in Ontario are headed.  Canadadude, you make a good point that we have an amazing fishery now so why do things that could screw that up?  The Credit could have a much better fishery if the migratory fish were allowed access to the better spawning grounds as the Atlantics have now.  Steelhead are better suited to the lakes environment, how hard is that to understand?  Atlantics don't survive as well and I don't think they ever can, they may be able to increase the numbers but it will never rival what we have now with the browns and steelhead.

 

One more thing to add, is that the MNR has been getting out of the salmon/trout game for a long time now, the fishing clubs on Huron and Georgian bay now support that fishery.  The MNR are now just stocking lakers to support the aboriginal commercial fishery on georgian bay.

Edited May 24, 2014 by ut_falcon

[darryl choronzey]

Well Canadadude ( won't ask you to quit hiding behind a make believe) I won't say that a program that has been going steady since 1987 is still in it's infancy. Or the fact that 8 million fish have been stocked and only 9 came back to the Credit at Streetsville is nothing really to worry about.

 

As for me and the old boys having a hate on for the MNR for the rest of our lives, surprisingly, myself and few other old boys work pretty closely with the MNR. Come on up to the Saugeen where we've improved a steelhead run from approximately 2500-3000 to upwards of 50,000 adult steelhead.  What me and few old boys as you put it do have a hate on is the close to one million atlantics  stocked every year, the waste of paying the upkeep of more than 7,000 broodstock, the misuse of hatchery space for this grand plan....and not even attempting to pick a better small river or two in the east end of the lake.  Why not save the waste and simply  do what New York does and cap the number of Atlantics stocked to between 50,000-100,000.

 

And again, the million or more pledged to the ofah for this idiocy is still coming out of taxpayers pockets one way or the other.

 

As I said I work pretty close with more than a few in the MNR and even from this ministry we are getting the warnings back about the effects of the new plans and that includes in house warnings from some that there's only so much money and hatchery space and native fish will come first and foremost.

 

It maybe the 'same crap and just a different day', but maybe we can see you out on a river collecting eggs or moving fish or even working in a hatchery.  You might already be doing that, but since I don't know who you are, I doubt it very much.

 

As for your 'croaker' rainbows, blame the Ontario mnr...they haven't changed or refreshed their brood stock in eons, although us old boys have suggested over and over that we could easily supply them with 'wild' eggs from the Saugeen that are disease tested and free and also are the same genetics used by New York, Michigan and Wisconsin in their 'wild' program.

 

More and more Ontario anglers are hitting the Blue Zone and I would bet my last lure that the majority of those 'wild' steelhead are New York stocked. The same holds true for the majority of kings and coho that feed off the Ontario shore right up until early to mid august.  You see, I'm more than ready to acknowledge that New York runs their fishery more like a business and not a grand experiment.

 

Read the link guys, and make you own decision on which way Ontario is headed.

Edited May 24, 2014 by darryl choronzey

[DNRoch]

I am seeing the same things as you there Canadadude... Someone who wants to be back in the limelight and a making waves until he does at all costs ....

 

The problem that I have here is that the original post in this thread was asking for more kings to be stocked because the poster was seeing more bait than he had ever before... Now without bringing up specifics, we have he the 5th hardest winter in recorded NYS history, the hardest in over 60+ year (which predates most of the people fishing for these fish in the lake), and making a statement that with seeing more bait in a confined area we need more predators... My response to that was to make a statment without knowledge of what else is out there is really not that educated, but since I seem to use numbers of reported bait numbers and years worth of data to make my statements, I must be in the wrong...

[LongLine]

If there's a lot of baitfish, they're not off the Genny.  I went almost 17 miles this morning & never saw a pod.  Check out the pix in my Russell report this morning.  All the fish were caught at the same waypoint, same depth, same lure which is pretty rare for being so far out.  The Brown's a porker but the rest are pretty skinny.  You can almost see the ribs on the one and the Laker's almost 30" long.

 

Tom B.

(LongLine)

[darryl choronzey]

Guys, I really don't want to invade a board, don't want to bang heads with with anyone. If you guys really know me, you know that I love what New York puts into the lake and the results  you guys have produced

 

The fishery right now is pretty great,  The bait situation is nowhere near  what it was when  us 'old guys' were around originally, but I honestly believe your boys in charge are doing as pretty good job

 

Come on Canadadude..who are you really???  I know who you are, but tell the rest of this board...

 

Hope this doesn't happen in the states, but this is the reason why we stock almost a million Atlantics a year with only 11 back.

 

Thanks for providing a great fishery

[canadadude]

I don't have any idea who you think I am, I am just a fisherman who has fished Lake Ontario since the mid 70's. Ron Penfound and Peter Sticklee got me into the Salmon fishery way back when it began. I fish out of St Catharines, On, and have nothing to do with Atlantic fishery, except I have seen some benefits of the program in the rehabilitation and public interest towards our rivers. I get it the returns are horrible. The program has had a huge impact on the general public's view of our cold water streams and how we need to rehab and protect these enviroments, all I'm saying is sometimes you have to look at other factors to see the benefits. Just dumping 1000's of fish into a ditch is not always the best way to deal with the enviroment, changing the opinion's of the public and restoring what we have destroyed is many times a better option.I'm just giving an opinion, I don't have an agenda, so Daryl don't read to much into it.
 

Getting back to the original post, Capt Vince may have a good point perhaps Alewive #'s are on the increase, I have seen large #'s of mature Alewive dying in our area of the lake aswell. I have not seen this since the mid 70's, although the die off is know where near as huge as back then. I would be carefull of increasing stocking because of one event, and I also don't understand the increase in Lake Trout stocking on one hand and a decrease in Salmon on the other.

[LongLine]

NY is putting in an additional 155K Kings this year.

 

Tom B.

(LongLine)