Dec meeting . State of Lake Ontario

[samajm]

Monday, March 14: 6:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) campus (Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science building (76-1125) - Carlson Auditorium), Rochester, Monroe County. The meeting is co-hosted by RIT and the Monroe County Fishery Advisory Board

[Gator]

Some interesting stuff. Here's the nuts and bolts. Others can add their take.

 

Everybody knows that catching was poor last year. The salmon were late to the game, and even then didn't show up in force. Every other species was at or near historic lows.

 

2012 had an awesome recruitment of alewives. Since then, the survey's indicated a lack of 1 year old fish in the nets. So, two year classes are essentially missing. Coupled with diminishing returns from the 2012 hatch, there could be a problem on the horizon. The best guess is that two hard winters in a row impacted survival. The DEC expressed "concern". 

 

Interestingly, there's $4.3 million bucks in Kodak cleanup money that's been allocated to the Genesee River. The fish and wildlife service is administering the funds and accepting project proposals from anybody. These are just proposals, not bids, so you don't get the money automatically if your project is selected. See this site for more information: 

 

http://www.fws.gov/northeast/nyfo/ec/GeneseeRiver.htm

[rdebadts]

My impression of the catch was that it was low as compared to the last 10 years or so but fairly typical and near historic averages overall.

The alewife population overall is fairly stable (adults that is)- likely a result of a huge year class 3 years ago, but new recruitment has been very low the last 2 years due to the cold winters (they think/hope). Alewife live 5-7 years, so they are really hoping for better than normal survival of the young of year over this last mild winter... If not I think that panic might follow. They are trawling in April so we will have an idea soon...

[Silver Fox]

2 bad winters is all. They definitely have a concern about the rainbows though.