Kings--what should be done

[Sk8man]

Maybe  folks should take it easy on bandrus....his comment merely illustrated a point I made earlier. Anytime you base a conclusion on limited information at a single "way point" in time (or limited range in time) the room for error increases dramatically. Those of us that have been around longer have had the advantage of having a few more data points (experiences observations etc.) to be able to "connect the dots" in a different manner.

Edited August 15, 2014 by Sk8man

[Silver Fox]

And my 30 years of "dots" count too.

[GAMBLER]

Thirty years must not count unless you are over the hill! Just because a few of us are still in out thirties or forties, does not mean we do not have years of experience. I grew up fishing Lake Ontario with my father and working on a couple charters over the years. I have seen the ups and downs of Lake Ontario. It has been a long time since we have had king fishing this bad.

[bandrus1]

Maybe  folks should take it easy on bandrus....his comment merely illustrated a point I made earlier. Anytime you base a conclusion on limited information at a single "way point" in time (or limited range in time) the room for error increases dramatically. Those of us that have been around longer have had the advantage of having a few more data points (experiences observations etc.) to be able to "connect the dots" in a different manner.

 

 

I dont feel like I am getting beat up at all

[bandrus1]

. It has been a long time since we have had king fishing this bad.

 

 

Well you can combine a one of the worst winters on record with one of the worst floods in the history of Oswego county with this year class of fish and maybe point some fingers

 

We are all just speculating until we get an official report and conclusion 

[GAMBLER]

You are correct and I hope to god we are all wrong! Even with the low king catch rate Lake wide, there is still we too much bait. The issues with caledonia and a second hatchery do need to be addressed.

[King Davy]

So I'll weigh in and to try and keep this on track, I'll just go down each of Vince's detailed points and give my honest opinion also from my 42 years of experience fishing this lake and all the others. Very sorry but this is going to be wordy.

 

1) Started with Native species - There is a connection to the States in which the Lakes are in, as well as the Federal Gov't on management guidelines. I don't believe that these guidelines can't be "amended", but I think the Stakeholders will have to meet them somewhere on the fact that We should study, experiment and have programs for Native species. It's important to the legacy of sportfishing to never forget your past, and the original history of these the greatest fresh water bodies on earth. Of the two main natives species for LO, Lake Trout have the best chance to regain a natural stable existance. In talking to the USGS crew three weeks ago they were very encouraged by the number of wild lake trout they are getting in their Lake Trout trawls on the West end. Better numbers then ever before. Meaning the natural habitat is supporting wild repo. Most likely results like this are going to push this progran forward.

 

Atl Salmon continues to be a long shot. I can't comment on OMNR, my biologist friends that worked on that moved to Thunder Bay and are working on other things, so no longer tied into that program, with enough knowledge to respectufully comment. But for the US side, our USGS study is still around finding a strain that may prosper. No impact on NYS funds for the LO program, and the few A salmon raised by NYS up in the ADK is not an operation that would be easily condusive to raise other species. We have enjoyed, (though limited) success with fish returning to the salmon river. And they now for the first time in 150 years are finding wild salmon. I'm no longer a professional fisherman, so having to find lots of fish and limits of fish are not a consideration. AND...those that fish for Atlantic Salmon are also not focused on tons of fish , but for sure fishable populations. We aren't there yet. But there is still a possibility for this to happen. It's not gone backwards and there continues to be baby steps forward rather then backward. This program appears to me, to have the least amount of impact on the open water fishery, except the position of the OMNR and other Canadian interests. Which no matter how much screaming the NYS anglers make....probably isn't going to drive management practices in Canada.

 

In the 46 years the current program has been in place, I think over all from where I sit, native Species study in the big picture has been able to live with the sport fishing program, so I would say these is no reason for it not to continue. And remember these progarms started back in the 1950's before the stocking started....mainly to address "invassive species" e.g the lamprey eel.

 

(1-a) Vince I'm taking eye up issues out of the first paragraph in your Essay. Water temp ...especially water temp is just not an easy thing to handle. In the past four years we had The hottest summer in over 100 years, and another I think in the top 10. With lower then average rainfall. No matter how and who manages the fishery .....Mother Nature can't be controlled, and thus neither can the temps of the river waters....ESPECIALLY in a tail water fishery where the draw isn't deep enough out of the rez to pump cold water. You wouldn't believe the proposals that have been made to the Power company at the Oak and Salmon river and also Oswego....on reconstruction of the rez's/lakes to get colder water in the system. It's 10's of millions of dollars, and who is going to pony that up?.....NOBODY.  Vince to your point the Htachery has struggled with water supplies over the years. In talking to Andy this spring, they were digging another deeper well, and they put some gear in place to increase the water flows from the wells to get better water pressure thus some better oxegen in the hatchery. I honestly can't comment if they finished that investment project, and how well it's working if it's done, but we can find out. The point here is DEC isn't sitting on their hands for good water at the hatchery, but any and all Capital improvements to any DEC facility has to have  approved funding. And we all know how broke NYS is. BUT to Vince's point can there be funds collected by stakeholders and provided legally for them to pursue capital projects? Need to talk to the poltical faction to find out how it can be done legally. You can imagine the red tape to do these things. Years ago The Lake Ontario Steelhead Assoc. decided to give gas cards to DEC to pay for gas for them to drive the lake in the fall winter and spring to do creel studies on the entire trib watershed. We had a b1tch of a time doing that.  BUT The water supply even from the wells is from the same aquifer as the river,

 

Eye Up Eggs. Salmon run when they run. Yesterday I know of a couple people who caught a limit of Kings in the Salmon river. Fish were already very dark. Also talked to a guy who got a nice box of kings off the salmon in LO river where the eggs were still very immature. As much as DEC strives to collect good healthy eggs from good healthy fish, the Fish metabolism isn't controlable. they are going to be in many different stages. Last two years there were fish in the ladder at Altmar in Mid August. Last year was a hot summer. Once these salmon go in there, they aren't turning around to swim back out. Those very early fish probably either perished and floated out before Oct. or if collected were probably eggs not usable. But the DEC ended up getting way more then their quota of good eggs. And how many times other then a couple years ago, was their a serious shortage in the last 40 + years. The DEC knows how and at what temps to collect eggs. They've been doing it a very long time. Will there be some years the situations become dire sure. So what else can be done. If would have to be approved by DEC, and just as the partnership for the pens was launched by Bob Songin, maybe Stakeholder weirs needs to be explored again. but once you make that commitment and get  an agreement to do that....you the angler has to staff it every day and it's a lot of man power. DEC does NOT have the resourses to set up weirs around other rivers. That's not an option. And I'm sure there would be lots of push back as has in the past to this effort, but put it back on the table. So places like the Oak that truly doesn't get a run of salmon until Oct. maybe you get those late fish. If you have ever visited the Altmar Hatchery in Oct at egg taking time, you will realize that  the raceways and Beaver Dam brook is jam packed with fish. It;s not like you can push an early arriver out of the way to get to the back of the line. If the eggs look bad they discard them right away. They take over a million extra for those eggs to compensate those don't eye up correctly.

 

2) Add 30% more King Salmon. The other side of the story on this...is ...if we did have a down year class for probably more then just one reason, there is report after report of tons of younger kings being caught. Just like the bait fish studies we sit and look at every year. There may be a down or missing year class, which usually opens the door for a younger year class to prosper. Of course we can't control bait fish flux. But it's the natural nature of how the environment works. OK but maybe there is an imbalance. If a year class of predators have dropped out it makes sense there could be less harvest of prey species. But if the classes behind them are robust, they willl naturally bring the prey back in balance. Yes there was die offs this spring of bait, and even since the beaches were cleared up 35 years ago..there was always spawning and winter stress die offs. some years much more then others. Yet we still don't have the shore line littered with dead bait fish.  Still you could make a case for adding more salmon. But the data has to point to a significant gap. (And before you discredit the data) hear me out. The new USGS boat has the most modern research deep water technology of any in the great lakes. This is their second year at sea. I know people are seeing lots of bait, so let's see what they found. USGS and DEC can not make a knee jerk management decision on if a year class is lost. They can't because they can't see the other salmon in the lake that don't show up this fall to determine if all are over or under fed. The only data they can put into their management model is what comes home. So let's say the spawners are on the long term, avg. in size....and especially on the avg of say the last five years. There isn't going to be a compelling story to toss another 510K (30%) kings in, along with the wild population which they don't have a handle on from all the wild stocks out of the river, let alone rest of the tribs. So (1) bad year does not a story make. BUT let's say they are willing to add some more just to experiment. We might not get 30%, but they might be able to increasae some. Adding extra fish in one year isn't going to crash the lake. However they'd have to have...and you'd want them to have a series of years data that suggests this wasn't a short term problem.

 

Here's the thing, they can't and won't make an irresponsible decision that would possibly crash this lake, because ...unfortunately it's not all about the fishery when talking about the lakes equilibrium. The program got started in the first place because cities, and towns, and private citizens complained about the baitfish washing up on shore. Politicians were under the gun to do somehtign about it, and turned to the DEC's and NRC's of the great lakes. And they figured it out, and we all know that Bill Pearce didn't know he was starting a booming sport fishery when he dumped the first bucket of Cohos in. There would be plenty of push back if we had a dead lake again. Still my positiion and it's only worth (1) vote, is to put the amount of fish in that matches the carrying capacity of the lake. Last few years other then the weather related problem from a couple years ago, we've had historical fishing. You've all said so on these very pages ....Logically one bad season...(and it's the second half of the season, cause the first half numbers didn't show this was going to happen)....year doesn't clear the way for any radical change. I know you don't want to suffer another bad july through august, but if it's falls over. Figure 5 to 10 years of learning to play golf.

 

3)  Summer water releases. The Yakers .....have just as much right to use our water ways for sport as we do for fishing. Pulse of water four times a summer especially in June and July has no baring on pacific salmon migration. You are talking a 350 and 750 cfs while kings are off shore and not very many in the east end. This year the river was up over 4K at twice....and over 1500 CFS several times simply because of the weather. Power Company can't allow water to run over the dam folks.....that would create a catastrophy. August release? Still at under 1000 until Sept 1. Those early June and July flows bring in our Atlantic Salmon and Skamania steelehad. And also big browns. And the river has a healthy population of anglers using it. They also have a right to fish and expect some fish to be present.  Without the base flows, there would be NO natural acquatic life in this river, and the health and well being of the environment that spawns as many as 5 to 10 million wild kings would be in serious trouble. They used to shut this thing down during the week. Inscect life that is crutial to all living creatures in this watershed were impacted. So yes there is a fantastic small mouth bass fishery there....lots of bait fish species and bugs for YOY fish to eat and survive on. There will always be warm water species in play in all our rivers...and has been since the dawn of time...yet we still have a very viable cold water sport fishery. Again since 1998 when the treaty went in place for base flows...is also some of the greatest results in catch rates we've ever had in the history of the fishery. Vince again just my opinion a "serious" one time eye up egg problem in the last 15 years, isn't time to roll the dice. DEC has had eye up egg issues certain years....many that we didn't even know about. What brought the 2011 to life was the inability for fish especially females to get the the hatchery.

 

(4) Higher % of fish should be penned. I don't disagree with this...except to play devils advocate. The open water community screams for DEC to not put all their eggs in one basket. And I get that....wish there was another healthy place to raise these fish...without impacting other programs. The in-land fisheries which is gigantic folks....depends on Caledonia and displacing those fish and especially that brood stock isn't the answer. Plus the Virus risks. But I think the DEC can't allow all the fish in the pens even if you all accept the risk if there was a catastrophy like what happened at Sandy back in the 90's. I was there and I realize it was a bad decision that day to load them in...but also would could have happened is four days after the water temps were good...we got weather that rose the temps to leathel stage and the crew couldn't get them out fast enough....and ALL...not some but ALL are gone. But again....good suggestion to make to DEC...as long as nobody is going to cry about a total kill if there was a mishap. .

 

(4-a) Size of the YOY fish is truly a product of the conditions in the hatchery. Some years weaher conditions and snow melt and water temps grow them slower....holding them longer ....to a point they will smolt in the tank before you can get them to the pens. So I agree size matters, but if you want the size on these tough condition years, then be Ok with fish that smolted in the hatchery and most likely your pen holding is just a baby sitting job.

 

I'm going to make one more point about Pens. I used to volunteer and I've helped at Sandy, the Oak, and the Genny. I don't today because I live an hour or more away from these places....I'm NOT pointing any fingers....so let's not get crazy. This spring I was out and about and did visit a pen site. The pens were filthy...most likly from a rain event that rose the water and pushed a ton of silt and dirt into the pens, but that is life ending for these tiny fish.  The feeding log was not up to date and the bags in the bin had dates and times for feeding that hadn't been completed. so I fed them. They hadn't been fed in over a day. And when the fish came up to eat, they didn't look good. I believe in the Pen programs. Cheers to Bob for getting this started and running all these years. but it seems all the pen programs struggle these days to get feed and cleaning volunteers. I have no idea what was the situation that caused the pens to be filthy and not kept clean, and the fish not fed for over a day. Probably was only a freak one time thing, hopefully but if you are going to take responsibility for the product...then you have to have the dedicated resources. And you can't have pen site leads begging for help. And that means if oyu have a high water flood tyope event...everybody is dropping what they are doing and running to save the fish. Watch the USGS charts for water flows and temps. You can see a five degree spike in less then 10 hours of a warm spring storm, where that temp pushes the pen fish to the brink.

 

Vince the rest of your points for me are spot on. Care of the fish you handle. I watch boat anglers on video's and countless trib anglers mishandle fish. There are many inexperienced anglers in our environment. All I'd say is ...for me I'd assume you just are inexperienced. So If I approach you on a stream....and say...hey ...can I show you and easier or better way to handle that fish don't be offended.. There was a time I had to learn as well. If you don't intend to harvest a fish, don't take him out of the water. easy to do on a trib, not on a boat. But you can have a release chamber that is simply a fish cooler with controlled water in in, by having a simple stream thermometer and some ice to add keep the temps viable for their release. Don't hold a fish vertical. Displaces it's internal organs and a decent chance he won't survive. Keep hand out of the gills no matter what...

 

Unless injured, if  you want good returns of mature fish, don't harvest the young...skippers to two year olds. ..unles you  intend to eat them.

 

Lastly...(I know you thought this would never end...either did I.). There is a Vast community of other types of anglers. Yes the effort is far greater on the tribs then the lake. But that's not my point. We should be respectful for all the Salmonid species, open water and trib fisheries, and understand that Your game or my game isn't the only game in town. We can all play in this together, and for the most part we have. I'm a catch and release guy number one reason...I don't care for these fish as table fare. so why kill a fish somebody else might enjoy. If i release a trout after catching it...I or somebody's kid has a chance to catch it again.  But I respect and would fight for the right to maintain our herritage to have the choice to harvest fish and game to the letter of the law.

 

Thanks for reading, discussion, ideas and thoughts are instrumental to make solid positive successful adjustments. What Vince has done is to take a position. That's how you start a negotiation, Then you have to field all the relative data. and have to be open to comprimise to make gains in your position.

[choo-choo]

For those that continually bring up the risk of collapsing the bait, I say the biggest risk is going into another winter with the bait population so ridiculously high it could collapse due to UNDER predation. Instead of having enough food for a stable population of alewives, we may be looking at starving them out.

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[choo-choo]

Sorry...this was part of Vinces post.

Could this be what they want to do? To let the Alewife population collapse to enable other natural bait numbers to increase and then the Atlantic's would prey on native bait .....not alewives which have that thiamine issue..which causes poor reproductive rates for Atlantics. I hope they just increase the numbers of kings to control the alewifepopulation.

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[GAMBLER]

Is this the states way of getting out of king stocking?  Let the Feds do the stocking of natural species?  If the system could handle 300,000 more lakers, how come we did not get an increase in kings a couple seasons ago?  The USGS said the lakers were eating a lot more gobies.  It is funny that I only have 5 gobies spit up on the floor of my boat this summer.  Mostly alewives and smelt were spit up. 

[King Davy]

I mean no disrespect I just want to say.....and I don't get this.....what posture has DEC given the fishing community that makes you think they have an agenda to kill the most popular in land fishery in the world? BTW Atlantic Salmon fry are treated so that thiamine is no longer and issue. Many studies have been done to show that winter kings continue to feed and yet also winter in very deep depths of 200 to 300 feet. However core temps  in all the great lakes were cold for longer, and normally fish in those states don't feed as well or as often. So I would think this past winter they didn't have the feed bags on as they normally did, but for gosh sakes we just experienced the longest time period of cold weather once again in over 100 years.  

 

I'm sure somebody is going to put up the long list of underhanded things the DEC has done to end this fishery...one that has record succcess for the past decade, and over all the most popular successful fishery of all the great lakes. The DEC to Vince's point from 1992 decided to manage the foarge and not the predators. I don't disagree that they may have pushed the panic button a little too soon, but I think the very last  thing they want to do is end the life of the food web.

[Xxx]

I can remember in the late 70's up the Perch River we had property and the salmon were so thick you could literally walk across them and the snagging game was in full force, being a young lad and the whole river to myself I thought this was great, then they did away with the snagging and that put the little town of Dexter right into a ghost town. It just seems to me the salmon numbers have been diminishing ever since, yes there were banner years like two years ago and last year but nothing like it was. I also realize since then the lake went from dark green to crystal clear and many things have changed since the late 70's for the better or not? I'm just lucky enough to be around long enough to see the good the bad and the ugly. I personally don't think we can point the finger at the fisherman-ladies whether your on land or a boat person. Lets work together on this and as a whole we can adapt and overcome, pointing the finger at each other will accomplish nothing. With the economy in the shape it's in this is no time for the state of NY. To take another punch on the chin. The local businesses need people in there stores buying fishing items as we need salmon to catch!!! I hope for all our sakes this gets resolved fast and peacefully.

[Gill-T]

I think everybody has covered all the bases.  Start with a decade of super warm tribs with low water come fall spawning time reducing natural reproduction.  Add into the equation a record cold winter changing the current dynamics in the lake (those old GPS coordinates were not hitting this year).  Throw in a possibility of BKD from eating Gizzard Shad the past two springs.  Lower number of fish stocked due to conditions at the hatchery.  Perhaps greater Lake Trout predation on immature Kings.  Perhaps the harvest of two year old Kings last year lakewide was high?  Does it really matter why?  For me what matters is the DEC lake managers interpreting the data have the ability to adjust stocking numbers year-to-year instead of every five years.  There will always be a flood or a drought or a cold winter.......so the current agreement being constructed with the Canadian MNR should include more flexibility in stocking numbers IMO.

[King Davy]

PAP's post just triggered one other thought. The 2012 and 2013 open water fishing and trib returns (especially the trib returns) were lights out. That means this years mature adult class were the juvies (assuming we see more kings mature to spawning stages as three year olds). So this is the 2010 (4's) to 2011 (3's) year class that we had water and eye up problems with for sure....but also....were these young fish predated on, and or more important out competed for food?  Triggering poorer servival rates?

[momay4000]

I think everybody has covered all the bases.  Start with a decade of super warm tribs with low water come fall spawning time reducing natural reproduction.  Add into the equation a record cold winter changing the current dynamics in the lake (those old GPS coordinates were not hitting this year).  Throw in a possibility of BKD from eating Gizzard Shad the past two springs.  Lower number of fish stocked due to conditions at the hatchery.  Perhaps greater Lake Trout predation on immature Kings.  Perhaps the harvest of two year old Kings last year lakewide was high?  Does it really matter why?  For me what matters is the DEC lake managers interpreting the data have the ability to adjust stocking numbers year-to-year instead of every five years.  There will always be a flood or a drought or a cold winter.......so the current agreement being constructed with the Canadian MNR should include more flexibility in stocking numbers IMO.

 

Awesome post Gill-T. It was like the 'Cliff Notes" version of 3,000,000 other posts. Best part is the idea to manage data year to year.

 

Well put.

 

Chris

[rolmops]

The Caledonia issue was talked about at the State of the Lake meetings and they will not do it because of VHS disease.  I mentioned Powder Mill but they said it was a private hatchery.  Why not contract out raising Kings at Powder Mill and move the browns they raise to Caledonia?  I would be more than willing to donate time to volunteer to help with the project.  We could also raise $ from West end tournies to support the Hatchery and projects.  The second hatchery issues was talked about to and they did not have many answers.   

The reason why Powder Mills Park is not used for kings is the same as the reason why Caledonia is not used. Both are virus free and the DEC wants to keep it that way. The Atlantics that are sometimes introduced into Powder Mills are imported from Vermont. I have tried to talk to the owners of Powder mills but they have not answered my repeated requests for communication.This may have to do with a big restoration project that has been done to Irondeqoit creek. The creek has had artificial barriers and lots of sediments removed. At this point the yearly average temperature in most of the creek is low enough to make Atlantic natural  reproduction a possibility. At the same time the kings travel all the way up to the sources of the creek.

[GAMBLER]

PAP's post just triggered one other thought. The 2012 and 2013 open water fishing and trib returns (especially the trib returns) were lights out. That means this years mature adult class were the juvies (assuming we see more kings mature to spawning stages as three year olds). So this is the 2010 (4's) to 2011 (3's) year class that we had water and eye up problems with for sure....but also....were these young fish predated on, and or more important out competed for food?  Triggering poorer servival rates?

Poor conditions or not, this shows we can not depend on natural reproduction! 

[GAMBLER]

According to the DEC, if fish can get upstream of the hatchery, VHS could get into the hatchery. Therefore, VHS could get into powder mill hatchery. Steelhead, kings and browns all swim past the hatchery every year and die! Fish matter can carry the VHS into the hatchery.

Edited August 15, 2014 by GAMBLER

[King Davy]

Yup Agree Gambler.....the line up of all the cold water sport fish still requires stocking help. They even stock Kings in Alaska. Unfortunately...cause they have to now.

[salmonboy41]

The Caledonia issue was talked about at the State of the Lake meetings and they will not do it because of VHS disease.  I mentioned Powder Mill but they said it was a private hatchery.  Why not contract out raising Kings at Powder Mill and move the browns they raise to Caledonia?  I would be more than willing to donate time to volunteer to help with the project.  We could also raise $ from West end tournies to support the Hatchery and projects.  The second hatchery issues was talked about to and they did not have many answers.   

Yeah I remember then saying that about VHS I just couldn't think of any other hatchery's with the ability to raise kings.

I like your idea about Powder Mill with swooping browns for kings as that just makes sense.

[rolmops]

 

According to the DEC, if fish can get upstream of the hatchery, VHS could get into the hatchery. Therefore, VHS could get into powder mill hatchery. Steelhead, kings and browns all swim past the hatchery every year and die! Fish matter can carry the VHS into the hatchery.

There is no upstream of the hatchery at either Caledonia or Powder Mills park. Both hatcheries have drilled wells which suppliy all their water needs. The water goes from the well through an oxygenator into the ponds. It leaves the hatchery through an unpassible barrier

Edited August 15, 2014 by rolmops

[WalleyeLJ]

Yup Agree Gambler.....the line up of all the cold water sport fish still requires stocking help. They even stock Kings in Alaska. Unfortunately...cause they have to now.

 

Had the fortune to fish for Kings in Alaska in 2012 (my wife caught the biggest one!). I think most folks would agree that a salmon fishing trip to Alaska is likely a bucket list event for most folks here on the board. By comparison to the three rods per person, multi-hook luers, and slider added options we have available on Lake Onatrio, everyone on our Alaska charter was allowed a single rod in the boat, and a single hook on that line. When I told the charter captain about how many lines, lures and hooks we can use on Lake Onartio, he couldn't belive it...

[King Davy]

Yeah walleye I've spent a lot of time in Alaska and on the kenai. A world class fishery but the king salmon returns have been in trouble for several years. In Alaska AF&G will shut down the fishing on a minute if they suspect a problem with the salmon returns.

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[john1947]

Lake Ontario salmon is way better than Alaska.I myself realy appreciate the fishery we have after getting skunked in Alaska.One big problem is we just dont have the interest we had several years ago.Many times there are few boats fishing .No interest,no stocking might come about.

[sabonation]

Lake Ontario salmon is way better than Alaska.I myself realy appreciate the fishery we have after getting skunked in Alaska.One big problem is we just dont have the interest we had several years ago.Many times there are few boats fishing .No interest,no stocking might come about.

Its a vicious cycle. nobody is going to be interested and willing to spend time/money fishing them if there aren't enough fish to be had.

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