Rochester State of the Lake Meeting

[jimmay]

On 3/10/2017 at 8:48 AM, Missdemeanor said:

I agree..... finally some good collaboration between the DEC and the Canadians. Very interesting data. I especially like the tagging study done on Chinooks. Seems like the Canadians really have their stuff together.
There has been some talk about the Steelhead numbers.... a guy brought up the effects of a fish being stressed from hooked multiple times in a stream and the ability to reproduce.... very interesting.....
The good news is that it appears with the warmer winter last year, the alewives seemed to do a little better. We are still missing 2 year classes of them, but the biologist seemed optimistic that the numbers would go up again this year. One can only hope....

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Here is some information on the Tagging program.   I have been told there are still a few tags out there in the lake.  If you find one, please send it in. The information is only as good as what they get back.  Tightlines. 

 

 

[rdebadts]

It is somewhat discouraging to read something like this (stress the importance of kings specifically) after attending the Summer meeting in Greece that was attended by maybe 10 people and specifically  detailed the alewife situation, and after seeing the effort NYSDEC has put in to get this information, and the Fish Community Objectives, out to the general public.  DEC and OMNR are only responding to what was generated  a few years back with input from stakeholders at the annual State of the Lake Meetings.  If you have not read this document, please do so so that you understand what guides policy out on the Lake.  This will also come up for discussion again in a few years, as it is done on a 10 year cycle.
http://www.glfc.org/lakecom/loc/LO-FCO-2013-Final.pdf.
 
It is also discouraging to read all the doubters and naysayers who do not trust the science.  The basic logic is that if you drop a net on a transect repeatedly over time you get a representation of the relative density of the alewife. Many drops on multiple transects give a greater sense of relative abundance.  If there are huge numbers of Alewife, you catch should be higher, if less, lower.  You also get to look at condition and size as a measure of health of each year class.  What they found after the two bad winters was a hole where the numbers associated with two year classes were extremely low.  This does not say there are no fish in those year classes, so a school could get entrapped in an intake or you could hit a bunch of predators that just chowed on a school, but in relation to a "full" lake, there are a lot less.   Or we could put more predators in, but understand that the risk then might be a complete collapse in the long run.  Also, if we are going to ignore the science, we could change the management and just stock fish without any concern for the word " trophy", and get rid of a lot of this monitoring and save a lot of money, as Andy Todd pointed out last summer.  If you missed the meeting last summer, or the print materials that went out with it, please read http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/107705.html  

I only mentioned the emphasis on kings to display that they don't seem to have the angle that many accuse them of having- that they favor lakers cause they are paid for by the Feds. They seem to recognize the financial importance of kings, and made a concerted effort this year to tell us that. In many other states (Michigan specifically) this does not appear to be the case. It was refreshing. I came out of the meeting pretty optimistic honestly. Those guys are doing good work and are very transparent it seems


The Fishin' Physician Assistant
Fishsodusbay.com

[Lucky13]

Steve and Andy have both been very emphatic that they want to see this fishery thrive, in whatever form  the majority indicates they want to see it, as determined by the FCO process.  Sometimes that means making hard decisions to minimize potential risk of something much worse potentially happening down the road.  And the Feds do have a say in the management as well, as it is an international water body.

 

Glad to see that others are seeing their efforts.

 

No cookies because DEC found that the meeting went smoother with no break, worked again this year, we were out around 9 PM!   Some of those guys probably had to drive home (Oswego, Cortland, Cape Vincent, Canada?) travel budgets are very tight anymore!