"The man with the salmon plan"

[Legacy]

Great read about the history of the Great Lakes trout and salmon fishery

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/The-man-with-the-salmon-plan-b99397807z1-284550491.html

[Last One]

Here is the question. What does this mean for Lake Ontario Salmon?

[Thun]

Great article, thanks for sharing. It appears that the alewives are good for kings, bad for everything else. How do you manage that?

[Capt Vince Pierleoni]

Thanks Rob. His name was much more commonplace in the 80's, yet he remains a true hero as was the late great Bill Pearce of NY. Looking forward to reading his book. I have actually been to Bear creek and the Platte river. Very cool to learn he actually stocked some from a bucket.

Those dieoffs due to overpopulation on Lake Michigan described in the article, were commonplace here on Lake Ontario in the 70's. Talk about taking lemons and making lemonade. Kudos. 

[Sk8man]

Neat article. They had huge die offs on the Finger Lakes like Seneca and Cayuga back then too. I remember them to closing the beach where Seneca Lake State Park is today that was then a city of Geneva beach. They shoveled them by the truckloads and transported them to nearby farmers fields as fertilizer. You could smell them all the way in town when they had those big die offs.

[PeltHunter]

I found one particular paragraph in all three parts of that article that scared me after how good the salmon fishing was in 2012 and 2013 and how terrible it was this year.

 

"The alewife crash started around 2003, but few noticed it at first. The salmon fishing had been as good as ever — record catch rates were recorded just the year before. But it turned out this was not the sign of a healthy salmon fishery. It was a sign the salmon were running out of alewives to eat."

[Rich D]

But after seeing what everyone that hit the lake last season saw, that is not the case on Lady O. We have more bait, in some cases an influx of bait, and need more predators. Going to be curious to see what comes out in the SOTL meetings this year.

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[baitrigger]

Rich i agree, lets not forget the main lesson. Too many equals none. I would not want to be the anti-tanner. The guy they write about who ended the run. The numbers should be conservative at most times.

Edited January 14, 2015 by baitrigger

[Jolly II]

I found one particular paragraph in all three parts of that article that scared me after how good the salmon fishing was in 2012 and 2013 and how terrible it was this year.

"The alewife crash started around 2003, but few noticed it at first. The salmon fishing had been as good as ever — record catch rates were recorded just the year before. But it turned out this was not the sign of a healthy salmon fishery. It was a sign the salmon were running out of alewives to eat."

In the cases of Lakes Michigan and Huron where there was a cash, their salmon showed signs of stress with poor body condition. This is not the case for Lake Ontario, body condition of our fish has been good and steady, that is the weight of a 36" fish. I'm confident that we have a good forage basin. Our lake is hard to compare to Michigan and Huron with it being the last and lowest Great Lake.

Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United mobile app

[jhuntsman]

That was a great article. It just shows what a delicate balance a huge body of water can require and that it is ever changing. I would hate to see this happen to Ontario or Erie but reading the latest update on steelhead mortality makes me wonder how long great runs of steelhead and salmon can go on. I was certainly spoiled after the 2012 and 2013  runs on the Salmon river. From talking with other people areas such as the Black River had a great run of salmon. I guess we will see what happens in the fall.