Lake Ontario Alewife Status July 2016

[Legacy]

Lake Ontario Alewife Status July 2016

 

LakeOntarioAlewifeStatusUpdate-2016 (1).pdf

[TileMan Dan]

Not a real good study showing the whole picture of alewife biomass in Lake O. Seems to me that most of bait is on north shore at that time of year due to it being most ideal for alewife but they dont sample it due to ripping of nets. One big trawl showing such and they threw out data. Scientific method they use is BS !!!

[rolmops]

Usually government agencies are secretive about their research results so it can be used for whatever political interest there may be and to insulate the agency from political pressure from special interest. Given the DEC's yearly budget and their willingness to show the results and admitting the weak spots in their information gathering, it is clear to me that the DEC has no political agenda and that they are truly working in the interest of the health of the lake (not necessarily in the  commercial interest of groups or individuals). Thank you DEC for keeping your eyes on our environment.

Edited September 30, 2016 by rolmops

[Gator]

The bar graphs seem pretty clear. We're missing two whole year classes. Since the size distribution doesn't reflect overall catch, it's not a measure of population, but rather relative abundance within the population. I don't think there's any way of avoiding the fact that there's a gap.

[TileMan Dan]

Gator, you are absolutely right that there is a gap. Any one who spent some time on the lake fishing those years knew there was a bait problem. IMO, I don't think it is as bad as they want to make it out to be therefore resulting in the amount of reduced stocking that is being proposed.

[Gill-T]

Nobody should argue that there is not enough alewife in the lake. However, our fish finders don't tell us the age of the bait balls below us. For this reason I can't argue with their data. With emerald shiner and smelt numbers down the pressure could become too great on the alewive population and the resulting imbalance would take longer to reverse. We need to take our medicine now and chip out our ball from behind the tree in order to salvage the 18 hole score. If we don't get this right we may all be playing more golf over the summer instead of fishing.

Edited September 30, 2016 by Gill-T

[skipper19]

Nobody should argue that there is not enough alewife in the lake. However, our fish finders don't tell us the age of the bait balls below us. For this reason I can't argue with their data. With emerald shiner and smelt numbers down the pressure could become too great on the alewive population and the resulting imbalance would take longer to reverse. We need to take our medicine now and chip out our ball from behind the tree in order to salvage the 18 hole score. If we don't get this right we may all be playing more golf over the summer instead of fishing.

Very true and those big spawning adult Alewife are bad on other things that you mentioned are down.

Alewife are a major consumer of larval fish of several species (lake trout, yellow perch, burbot, lake herring, bloater, emerald shiners, etc

It is delicate balance and Pacific salmon are the easiest and quickest counterweight to it all...kings save the day all the way!

Sent from my SM-N900P using Lake Ontario United mobile app

[LongLine]

So I'm over a school of baitfish & I snag the only 2-3 year old alewife in the school.  Really am sorry about that guys...looks like I got the last one. 

 

Tom B.

(LongLine)

[skipper19]

So I'm over a school of baitfish & I snag the only 2-3 year old alewife in the school. Really am sorry about that guys...looks like I got the last one.

Tom B.

(LongLine)

Question is Tom, how did it fry up? Any meat to it?

Sent from my SM-N900P using Lake Ontario United mobile app

[work2fish]

Apparently its difficult to determine the age class of alewife based on size. When they do the trawls they actually identify the age class by dissection. so I do believe the science that we are very low on those year classes.

Sent from my SM-G920W8 using Lake Ontario United mobile app

[Gator]

Anybody else notice that our problems appear to have been exacerbated by the influx of invasive species? I'm not just talking alewives abundance, I'm talking about changes in patterns that held for twenty years. Predictable bites that disappeared. More flux to the system. It's like we're buoying Lady O just enough that she persists in a stressed state, but a nudge from one direction sends it off-course. 

 

Maybe I'm remembering the past with rose-colored glasses, but there are so many consistently good bites that have shut down or changed to a huge degree...the piers, the spring brown trout inshore, the surface thermal structure for steelhead in May, the steady migration of kings east to west...these were known patterns that appeared year after year. Now, it's hit or miss, mainly miss.

 

A stressed ecosystem is an unpredictable ecosystem. And yes, I'm probably guilty of a little "good ole' day" syndrome. And I can't argue that the fishing can be as good now as it was then. We had some unreal days this year. It's just so much more variable.

[TileMan Dan]

You absolutely right about that Gator. The mussels in LO did a better job of cleaning up the water than the clean water act could of. The lack of plankton on east end has made for tough fishing. West end gets the plume from Erie. Like they say 90% of fish in 10% of the lake. Today you can count the rocks on the bottom in 20 fow. Wasnt the case 30 years ago.

Have to change our ways as LO changes.

[Xxx]

You absolutely right about that Gator. The mussels in LO did a better job of cleaning up the water than the clean water act could of. The lack of plankton on east end has made for tough fishing. West end gets the plume from Erie. Like they say 90% of fish in 10% of the lake. Today you can count the rocks on the bottom in 20 fow. Wasnt the case 30 years ago.

Have to change our ways as LO changes.

Finally someone speaks that was born before I graduated from high school, to many people speaking how good of fishing LakeO is, that have no clue of how it "was" I finally gave up on posting about fishing, those who think 2-3 fish days are good, OK THEN, I know it will never be what it was but it could be a hell of a lot better!! Had a guy come from the finger lakes come to my house to pick up a tree stand and tell me they have 30 plus fish outings!! When was the last time anyone had a 30+ fish week, unless your fishing worms on the bottom for gobies. 500-600 coppers getting the job done, really? 280-300 out on dipsys, is this the way of the future, put you boat in at one county and lock the bail down in another? LOL!!

[Sk8man]

I think if you combine Gator and Tile Man's comments you have an accurate assessment of the situation and unfortunately we humans often have the tendency to look at issues and problems in terms of a "single cause" approach as though one particular thing has "caused" something when in fact the problem itself is highly complex and interrelated and thus poorly understood from the start. We also have a tendency to look for "silver bullet" cures to problems.The Lake Ontario ecosystem is a good case in point.  As we go along in time I become more more confident that nobody has a handle on the sum total of complex interactions going on here and it may take that to solve the problem effectively (if it in fact can be solved). There are many vested and perhaps conflicting interests involved as well and this adds to the difficulty in sorting things out.  Some of the difficulty in getting a handle on the research data relates to the fact that we are dealing with a natural rather than laboratory experimental setting where effective "controls" are either not feasible or are not possible for a variety of reasons including expense and the necessary components for statistical analysis of the data are difficult to achieve or lacking (e.g. random sampling and normal distribution of the population data). This makes it nearly impossible to make any firm conclusions based on the "science" of the situation.

Edited October 1, 2016 by Sk8man