where are the salmon

[Sk8man]

The best bang for your time might be to contact your state legislators. I just sent Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb an email copying him in on this thread. Albany often only reacts to concerns when political pressure is applied, matters are made known publicly, or they can directly benefit  in some material or personal way  from the issue. Assemblyman Kolb on the other hand has been on the right side of many issues (e.g. trying to end the corruption in Albany) and I hope he might be able to shed some light on our concerns regarding the hatchery situation and King dilemma.....we'll see.

[Missdemeanor]

 Anybody know there is a hatchery in Wheatland????  Cedar Spring Hatchery......

[Traveling Circus]

The politicians with the most "at stake" might be the Senators whose districts bound the LO shoreline..... The economies of these counties are greatly enhanced by the success of anglers largely targeting kings......

 

District 62 Robert Ortt - Niagara / Orleans / Monroe

District 56 Joe Robach - Monroe

District 55 Rich Funke - Monroe

District 54 Michael Nozzolio - Wayne

District 48 Patty Ritchie - Cayuga / Oswego / Jefferson

 

Give them a shout......... Perhaps an organized shout would be most effective.

 

Organized petition?

Edited September 12, 2015 by Mike Engle

[Missdemeanor]

The best bang for your time might be to contact your state legislators. I just sent Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb an email copying him in on this thread. Albany often only reacts to concerns when political pressure is applied, matters are made known publicly, or they can directly benefit  in some material or personal way  from the issue. Assemblyman Kolb on the other hand has been on the right side of many issues (e.g. trying to end the corruption in Albany) and I hope he might be able to shed some light on our concerns regarding the hatchery situation and King dilemma.....we'll see.

Email sent to Senator Joe Robach...   Good Idea Sk8man and Mike Engle.

[wicked salmon]

When I was at CCFL back in the 70-120 I did a lot of fin clipping at Caledonia and I remember going to that hatchery in wheatland.I think it's been abandoned for a long time.

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[Gill-T]

[Gill-T]

[Gill-T]

These are the two letters that went out in the spring.  They went to Senators, the Governor, DEC higher ups.  The idea was to make everyone aware of the situation so if we have a catastrophe at Altmar nobody can say....."we didn't know".  I received return letters from Steve LaPan and Gov. Cuomo.  Feel free to use the format when you send letters to our officials.

Edited September 13, 2015 by Gill-T

[brucehookedup]

Salmon numbers are down, and so are the steelhead, for what ever reasons we all think or know. Bottom line is the state works for US. We need to stand up and be a serious voice to whomever and let them know we need more fish, period. The bait is there and we all know it. That is always there biggest concern, and ours as well. With all of the crazy weather patterns over the years be it spring summer or winter the bait is STILL there in more numbers i can EVER remember. A good lobbyist is probably all it will take besides money, which will be well worth it in the future. Think about it.

[Capt Vince Pierleoni]

Dead on, Bruce. They work for US. Noone has ever asked me- should we spend gazillions on the "just because" Lake Trout program while starving the ever popular Chinook/Coho program?  The returning Chinook to Olcott have names this year. There are less of them than ever.

I also think that the Lamprey control program is failing. We have had more wounding on Chinooks than I have seen since I rode a stingray to the lake in the late 70's. As for Alewife, a DEC biologist once said to me, "they will be in that lake long after we are all gone."  

Salmon numbers are down, and so are the steelhead, for what ever reasons we all think or know. Bottom line is the state works for US. We need to stand up and be a serious voice to whomever and let them know we need more fish, period. The bait is there and we all know it. That is always there biggest concern, and ours as well. With all of the crazy weather patterns over the years be it spring summer or winter the bait is STILL there in more numbers i can EVER remember. A good lobbyist is probably all it will take besides money, which will be well worth it in the future. Think about it.

[Capt Vince Pierleoni]

And Gill-T, Thank you for all the time you put into those letters and contacting those representatives. And so it begins.

[Gill-T]

[Gill-T]

 

 

 

[Gill-T]

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Edited September 16, 2015 by Gill-T

[Gill-T]

Edited September 16, 2015 by Gill-T

[Capt Vince Pierleoni]

WOW.    Well, in the meantime I hope contingency plans are being made to gather sufficient eggs. With the warm late Summer temps and reports of few fish in the SR system the time is now to plan. With returns ultra low, the targets that do enter the SR will be under seige. Heres to hoping the NYSDEC is proactive.  

[Gill-T]

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Edited September 17, 2015 by Gill-T

[oscarfish]

What should the average "Joe" from out of state do?

[wicked salmon]

Absolutely write the governor. You out of state guys spend a lot of money here.

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[Steelman]

Question.   If there is concern or blame put on the warm water temps in the SR during spawning stages, and the river is bottom fed from the reservoir, then why are they still emptying it all summer long for kayak and rafters every other weekend?   On many occasions throughout the summer you can go to Redfield and see how empty the reservoir is.  The river being fed from the bottom of the reservoir is it not clear as day that the deeper the water the colder the temps will remain at the bottom, therefore when spawning fish arrive timed releases of that colder water will keep the river cooler.   Seems to me that since they have been releases water on a regular basis for summer rafting the salmon fishing has really started to deteriorate.  I think one could do the math and figure out the cycle of the decline in numbers may just coincide with this.  Why in the world are they messing with a world class fishery that brings millions of dollars annually into the local economy for some rafter and kayakers who come up for the day by bus loads, float down the river only to get back on the busses and head home?  They are not spending the money fisherman do by any means.  I personally feel these summer water releases that serve no other purpose than take a lazy water ride down the river need to stop.  

[Gill-T]

Maybe someone can chime in here that knows for sure but I don't think the reservoir is that deep so probably not a huge difference in the temp from top to bottom.  

[Steelman]

http://nwis.waterdata.usgs.gov/ny/nwis/uv/?cb_00065=on&cb_00060=on&format=gif_default&site_no=04250200&period=&begin_date=2015-05-18&end_date=2015-09-15

50ft.  Look at the discharge cfs graph.   Note the 22 year median stats in comparison to the current.   Yes the water flows lately are the same or close, however not the median compared to this year, then look at previous few years since the water releases.  With the releases before the spawning there is no way I believe the water temps are not higher due to there being way less water in the reservoir.  I never ever remembering seeing dead salmon in early September on the river banks with bellies full of eggs or sperm until the past few years.  I have grown up and lived on the SR for 42 years.

Edited September 16, 2015 by Steelman

[Gill-T]

I would imagine the vast majority of naturals are from parents that spawned in November/December.

[Fat Trout]

I would imagine the vast majority of naturals are from parents that spawned in November/December

I fish the lower river (DSR) quite a few days Sept /October.  I guess it was 3-4 years ago or so when tons and I mean TONS of fish came in early.  At the same time we knew about the fin clipping project so we could tell hatchery from natural.  From 3rd week in August straight through 3rd week in September 90% of the fish that came through were unclipped (ie natural).  They were the early fish.   At the last week of Sept and into first week of Oct....here came the hatchery fish, nearly all had the adopise fin clip.  

 

As far as the reservoir.  There are 2...upper and lower.  The upper is in Redfield and the lower is just north of Altmar.  The upper has the bigger volume larger surface area but as a whole is relatively shallow.  They feed from the upper to the lower Res and the river is fed from the dam at the lower res.  The lower res is relatively small.  Neither is capable of a cold water bottom feed they just warm up too much based on lack of overall depth / volume.  

 

There has definitely been a larger presence of early fish in the last 10 years.  Those of us who fish the river (and I've been doing that for 30 years) see these early birds as the natural fish (confirmed pretty well by the clipping project which is now over).  These are the ones you see dead up through the river when the water is warm.  

 

They started the base flows in the summer (@ 185CFS) back in 1996.  Its taken a while but the natural reproduction has picked up steam.  It varies of course.....but 3 years ago (if I remember right) It was shocking how many fish came in early....just crazy.  every day was loads of fish...for a month and none of them were clipped.

Edited September 16, 2015 by ktdishinger

[Gill-T]

The 2013 class was awesome.  Not sure what happened but we had tons of fish to play with from that year class of fish.  Interesting that you say the naturals are early as I would have thought the water would be too warm to successfully reproduce in September.  Makes me think there is more natural reproduction happening in the Niagara than we know about.

Edited September 16, 2015 by Gill-T