Genny River Return??????

[Joker Products]

19 minutes ago, GAMBLER said:

Don't forget this is the return year of the spring with no pen rearing AND a 50% cut in salmon stocking. 

I guess that equals the pile of dog  excrement I’ve seen this year. Forgot about the reduced stocking numbers. Hope this kind of fall season isn’t common or people aren’t gonna come up and fish for them anymore and neither will all the $$$ that comes with them including myself. 

[fisherman21]

Fish were around every day, just have to put your time in. I do however agree it has not been stellar by any means. Most days out I only caught one fish, with a few good days mixed in. Definitely nothing like last year. I put the same number of fish on the pier as I did last year, but I had to put much more time in. Many days I went out during “perfect” conditions, and the fish just weren’t around. It does seem like they never really showed up in great numbers. My thoughts are the direct stock in 2016 and those big winds. Before we had those winds, it was pretty consistent. By consistent I mean hooking 3 to 5 an outing. But since that big wind, it has been pretty spotty. I think we will see more show up in the next couple days though. Go get em

 

 

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[HB2]

Had a great year trolling the mouth of Sandy this year . Best year since I've been here . 

 

And skein fishing has been good also 

 

Water conditions are  key IMO . 

 

Gin clear water = not  many fish . 

 

The water was green the most productive days out . 

 

East winds scatter the fish and they don't come back till it straightens out . 

 

Just because guys don't catch fish doesn't mean they aren't out there . 

[tuffishooker]

Good post HB2 ! But it still ain"t what it used to be ! IMO it is the cormorants as the wild card watching them destroy our spring fishery in Port Weller harbor this spring ! There are no nesting sites in that area !

[HB2]

And it never will be what it use to be .

The lake  in its current state can't handle that . 

Edited October 5, 2019 by HB2

[Fat Trout]

I realize this is a lot of discussion about inshore returns, piers etc but to give some East end perspective. I've fished this lake for over 30 years on the east end.   We don't see the bait that is seen out west and it is definitely down from years ago.  I troll over blank screens for hours.  Over the years typically we never saw the early king fishing in the lake that is seen out west and our only claim to fame was the fish came east to the SR in August.  It use to be you didn't see much in the way of kings until Mid july sometimes early July and in rare years May but only when bait happened to land in our area and those were still occasional fish here and there more than consistent    The last few years I've seen Kings in April and in numbers and more consistently and pretty damn good through the summer....still no consistent bait but hey, I'll take the early kings and I see some encouraging bait from time to time. I've also seen more color to the water.  Not always crystal clear.  I have no argument on the usefulness of Net pens for western ports.  However I'll only offer a box of tissues to those who think the west end is getting screwed over the east end.  We never had and still don't have the fishing the western ports have spring through summer.    To all who fish piers, yeah the clear water and whatever other factors is definitely a bummer.  I wish shore fishing is like it use to be but I have been encouraged about how the boat fishing has improved my way in recent years.   

[rdebadts]

The lake fishing has been nothing short of spectacular for 3 years running. Lots of kings and they're available most of the season. No complaints there. In fact, the lake fishing has been epic April- early August. The issue now is the almost complete absence of a staging king fishery on any port not named Oswego or pulaski, and dwindling stream returns on basically all of the central and western basin tributaries

 

 

The Fishin’ Physician Assistant

 

[brucehookedup]

With all of the cackling going on ( which is all good ) the salmon that are mature and seeking the genny should be showing their faces by now, regardless! I fished in front door today and got 2 bites, one sheepie and one 14 lb female salmon. Totally disappointed , two days of hard ne and e winds, plenty of 57 to 60 degree water, awesome color. Trolled to turning point and back, saw maybe 2 fish on the screen. I'm going for browns tomorrow then moving the next 6 trips to spring, sad. Can't wait to hear to as why, and it is lake wide not just us.

[fisherman21]

With all of the cackling going on ( which is all good ) the salmon that are mature and seeking the genny should be showing their faces by now, regardless! I fished in front door today and got 2 bites, one sheepie and one 14 lb female salmon. Totally disappointed , two days of hard ne and e winds, plenty of 57 to 60 degree water, awesome color. Trolled to turning point and back, saw maybe 2 fish on the screen. I'm going for browns tomorrow then moving the next 6 trips to spring, sad. Can't wait to hear to as why, and it is lake wide not just us.

Story of the fall season in front of there man.


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[HB2]

On 10/1/2019 at 6:57 AM, Gator said:

 

 

As a scientist, I will tell you that you don't have to prove a negative correlation to determine absence of effect. The major point being, the salmon raised at the Caledonia hatchery didn't imprint on the Salmon River. Hence, the hypothesis was that the Salmon River wouldn't be their default destination and they would be more likely to be found elsewhere doing the dance of love. I'm not trying to be argumentative, just clarifying something where I've seen a flawed premise lead to confusion. It is  likely that it was not the imprinting when Caledonia was open that was impactful, it was the lack of imprinting that promoted a more random distribution during the spawn.

 

BINGO! 

 

My exact feelings about this said in a scientific way  about lack of returns to western basin streams . Even with  the pen efforts which do help , the fish still have the Salmon river water in their DNA . It's not that they imprint to Calidonia , its  that they don't imprint to the Salmon river . 

 

The off the mouth , pier , and stream fishery is subject to weather,water conditions even more so than the lake . 

Makes me wonder if a certain amount of fish roam the lake and when it's staging time home in on the river that they are in front of with the right conditions . We would never know this until each ports fish were marked differently . 

 

Return numbers may be down lake wide , but as for my home port , I'm not seeing it . Granted I've only been here 4 years , but it's been great this fall since labor day . 

[Lucky13]

Not to rain on anyone's parade or throw water on anyone's fiery theories, but a check of the annual LO annual reports will conform that in 2016, the only pen site that was direct stocked was Sandy Creek, as no pen was available. 

Oak Orchard fish were delivered on 4/12/16, stocked on 5/10/16; 18 Mile on 4/13/16, stocked 5/3/16; Genny 4/15/16, stocked 5/5/16; Sodus 4/18/16, stocked 5/11/16; Little Sodus4/19/16, stocked 5/14/16; Oswego 4/20/16, stocked 5/12/2016; and Niagara 4/27/16. stocked 5/17/16.

 

In 2017, the Genesee River, Oak Orchard and the Niagara were direct stocked.  The other pen sites received their fish.  Those fish will have three years in the lake NEXT fall, or please correct my math.

 

While my reading on homing mechanisms in  anadromous fish indicate that way more is NOT known about this phenomenon than is known,  I fail to understand why fish that are raised in  Beaver Dam brook, a relatively small tributary of the Salmon River, home in so heavily, but fish that were raised in Spring Creek, a small tributary to a tributary of the Genesee did not "en masse" home in on the Genesee, as everyone says they are doing on the Salmon  River.  These fish in their native range could find the Clearwater River in Idaho in the outflow of the Columbia River, why didn't they imprint strongly on Caledonia, but instead distributed themselves to all the western tributaries.  Of course, fish that recruited from the natural component in the SR would imprint on the river and  return there, less the amount that strays, maybe a natural mechanism that insures that a catastrophe in one river would not totally eliminate fish from the river. 

 

Reports from  the Salmon River are not indicative of a massive run there,  no " hundred rooster tails in  the ripples below Joss all day"  reports from DSR, and many of the fishers I hear from reporting average to less than  average numbers of fish up river. Lots of fish in  the hatchery, but when  I was there last year at this time it was mostly cohos, the observer I heard from could  not say for sure this year.   Maybe my doctor will let me fish this week, and I'll see first hand.

 

There were 1,882,500 kings stocked in 2016, no reduction.  They are not in the west end, they are not in the Salmon in HUGE numbers, so where are they?  When I first said it, I was half joking, but maybe they "died of gluttony", if the alewife they have been feeding on  were low condition (as the trawl data indicates), loaded with thiaminase, and they overfed on them, maybe a lot of them have recently "hit the wall" as happened to the Steelhead a few years back. We'll have to see what the next couple of weeks bring.

 

On a personal note, in my service to the GLFC citizen's panel, I have attended every face to face meeting, and been on every call (one when  they were double session calls) with the exception of the last one, when I was with my wife in the emergency room in Utica, and they wouldn't let me use my cell phone. 

[Kingme2Go]

 

8 hours ago, HB2 said:

 

BINGO! 

 

My exact feelings about this said in a scientific way  about lack of returns to western basin streams . Even with  the pen efforts which do help , the fish still have the Salmon river water in their DNA . It's not that they imprint to Calidonia , its  that they don't imprint to the Salmon river . 

 

The off the mouth , pier , and stream fishery is subject to weather,water conditions even more so than the lake . 

Makes me wonder if a certain amount of fish roam the lake and when it's staging time home in on the river that they are in front of with the right conditions . We would never know this until each ports fish were marked differently . 

 

Check sections 3 of the 2015 and 2016 DEC reports for that info.

https://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/27068.html

 

DEC tagged each port differently and tracked the straying back to the Salmon River hatchery and found low straying from other sites to the Salmon river or hatchery. They also looked at tags to track the source of what is caught at ports through the year and in streams in the fall.. Most strays went to streams nearby where they were stocked. 

[Joker Products]

2 hours ago, Lucky13 said:

They are not in the west end, they are not in the Salmon in HUGE numbers, so where are they?

I got a report in early to mid September a bunch of them were headed towards Canada. From what I’ve been hearing they’ve been doing very good up there this year too

[chesapeake]

Not sure what is good or bad in regards to the fish going north and what is expected out of our Canadian returns but I do love checking this site.
http://www.riverwatcherdaily.is/Migration

In the last 30 days on the Ganaraska it is saying after plus minus up and down 8000+ have gone up

Sent from my SM-G955W using Tapatalk

[scottatsummerville]

11 minutes ago, chesapeake said:

Not sure what is good or bad in regards to the fish going north and what is expected out of our Canadian returns but I do love checking this site.
http://www.riverwatcherdaily.is/Migration

In the last 30 days on the Ganaraska it is saying after plus minus up and down 8000+ have gone up

Sent from my SM-G955W using Tapatalk
 

that's pretty cool, wish they watched more rivers though

Edited October 6, 2019 by scottatsummerville
my comment was in quoted post lol

[Gator]

17 hours ago, Kingme2Go said:

 

Check sections 3 of the 2015 and 2016 DEC reports for that info.

https://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/27068.html

 

DEC tagged each port differently and tracked the straying back to the Salmon River hatchery and found low straying from other sites to the Salmon river or hatchery. They also looked at tags to track the source of what is caught at ports through the year and in streams in the fall.. Most strays went to streams nearby where they were stocked. 

 

Interesting read. It's apparent that the percentage of fish caught that were stocked locally increases as the year progresses, with somewhat random representation of ports in the July lake catch transitioning such that the majority of the spawning fish caught in October were stocked locally. And that's great data for each of eight ports surveyed, indicating that local imprinting does occur and that straying between streams on the Western end is minimal. The straying to the SR is a different story, but the #s suggest 10-15% of the fish stocked at other sites stray. I'm not sure how these numbers factor in the relative ability to assess spawning composition at the SR versus other sites and the total # of fish that make the return. I have to admit, this isn't my field. But it seems like translating percentages to numbers based on different sampling techniques could be difficult. Certainly straying to the SR is a much larger factor than straying from the SR or between smaller tributaries. The other question I have, which unfortunately we can't address at this point in time, is whether the distribution of Caledonia fish differed from the SR fish. But based on the report, I think they'd have you conclude that straying isn't a significant factor. I think there's a few missing pieces I'd like to see before being convinced that this is a robust conclusion though.

 

Thanks for posting the link!! There's some good reading out there. It provides perspective on whether what we're doing with the pens (which I support wholeheartedly) is effective or is just making us feel good about ourselves. Objectivity is important if we're going to better the fishery.

Edited October 7, 2019 by Gator

[Legacy]

Mike Connerton and the NYDECs fin clipping study concluded that pen rearing did not help imprinting. Imprinting was just as successful in pen reared fish as direct stocked fish. During the study there was very little evidence to point suggesting fish were straying to the Salmon River. Some did but the percentages were very small. In the study they also concluded that there is a 2 to 1 survival (rate pen vs direct stock). Although I would have liked to see double the amount of data years, a  lot of assumptions are now in place from the study. That study changed our focus in pen rearing to concentrate on survival. Since then we have pushed hard to hold more pen reared fish annually, better food, feeders, ect. 

[GAMBLER]

20 hours ago, Lucky13 said:

Not to rain on anyone's parade or throw water on anyone's fiery theories, but a check of the annual LO annual reports will conform that in 2016, the only pen site that was direct stocked was Sandy Creek, as no pen was available. 

Oak Orchard fish were delivered on 4/12/16, stocked on 5/10/16; 18 Mile on 4/13/16, stocked 5/3/16; Genny 4/15/16, stocked 5/5/16; Sodus 4/18/16, stocked 5/11/16; Little Sodus4/19/16, stocked 5/14/16; Oswego 4/20/16, stocked 5/12/2016; and Niagara 4/27/16. stocked 5/17/16.

 

In 2017, the Genesee River, Oak Orchard and the Niagara were direct stocked.  The other pen sites received their fish.  Those fish will have three years in the lake NEXT fall, or please correct my math.

 

 

In 2017, the Sandy pen project only held out fish for a couple days due to warm water (technically we pen reared that year but I would pretty much qualify that as direct stocking) .  By your comment above are also insinuating all fish run at 3 year old. There is a large portion of the returns to the Salmon River Hatchery that are 2 year olds according to the DEC fisheries reports.  So yes, the Three year old returns next season will be down and 2 year old returns this season. 

[Lucky13]

I did not "insinuate" anything, I made a simple statement.  Yes, age two fish run, but in natural systems, the majority of spawners are age three fish.  Some one year old fish run also, totally immature jacks.  Because the age and condition report is based on returns to the hatchery, three year fish, which are the " targets" in the gauntlet of 13 miles below the hatchery, show in lower numbers, two year fish dominate. A lot of the ~20 lb three year olds end up on stringers, while the 12-15 lb two yr olds are less desirable to the P-Town visitors.

 

Fish went into Sandy on 4/21/2017, and were stocked on 4/27/17, 6 days .  My main point with that was you and others were working with 2016 as the years of no pens, you were off by a year.

 

Word from my Friends in P-Town is that the run there is pretty much a dud, too.  Maybe it is early, but Columbus Day weekend is upcoming.

Edited October 8, 2019 by Lucky13

[Gator]

On 10/7/2019 at 7:40 AM, Legacy said:

Mike Connerton and the NYDECs fin clipping study concluded that pen rearing did not help imprinting. Imprinting was just as successful in pen reared fish as direct stocked fish. During the study there was very little evidence to point suggesting fish were straying to the Salmon River. Some did but the percentages were very small. In the study they also concluded that there is a 2 to 1 survival (rate pen vs direct stock). Although I would have liked to see double the amount of data years, a  lot of assumptions are now in place from the study. That study changed our focus in pen rearing to concentrate on survival. Since then we have pushed hard to hold more pen reared fish annually, better food, feeders, ect. 

 

That was the take home message that I got from reading the reports, as well. I'd like to have a better feel for how valid the assumptions are that they make in order to calculate straying though. I was likely missing something in the calculations, but I wasn't convinced that their conclusion was as solid as the pen vs. direct stocking vs. survival impact, which was clear as day. Not really my field, but I'm down for being educated. I've been told I'm teachable, but just barely .

[GAMBLER]

51 minutes ago, Lucky13 said:

I did not "insinuate" anything, I made a simple statement.  Yes, age two fish run, but in natural systems, the majority of spawners are age three fish.  Some one year old fish run also, totally immature jacks.  Because the age and condition report is based on returns to the hatchery, three year fish, which are the " targets" in the gauntlet of 13 miles below the hatchery, show in lower numbers, two year fish dominate. A lot of the ~20 lb three year olds end up on stringers, while the 12-15 lb two yr olds are less desirable to the P-Town visitors.

 

Fish went into Sandy on 4/21/2017, and were stocked on 4/27/17, 6 days .  My main point with that was you and others were working with 2016 as the years of no pens, you were off by a year.

 

Word from my Friends in P-Town is that the run there is pretty much a dud, too.  Maybe it is early, but Columbus Day weekend is upcoming.

Well all the pen project seen to blend together year after year.  The no pen project years due to warm water hopefully are in the past now that the DEC has worked with us to prioritize the projects by water temp issues. 

[GAMBLER]

1 hour ago, Lucky13 said:

I did not "insinuate" anything, I made a simple statement.  Yes, age two fish run, but in natural systems, the majority of spawners are age three fish.  Some one year old fish run also, totally immature jacks.  Because the age and condition report is based on returns to the hatchery, three year fish, which are the " targets" in the gauntlet of 13 miles below the hatchery, show in lower numbers, two year fish dominate. A lot of the ~20 lb three year olds end up on stringers, while the 12-15 lb two yr olds are less desirable to the P-Town visitors.

 

Fish went into Sandy on 4/21/2017, and were stocked on 4/27/17, 6 days .  My main point with that was you and others were working with 2016 as the years of no pens, you were off by a year.

 

Word from my Friends in P-Town is that the run there is pretty much a dud, too.  Maybe it is early, but Columbus Day weekend is upcoming.

Even if I was off a year, the 2 year old year class will be short and noticeable in the run.  I read in the DEC meeting minutes from the state of the lake meeting that the 2 and 3 year olds make up 90% of the run.  It did not say how much of that 90% was 2 and how much was 3. It should change year to year due to the strength of the year classes.  If the 2 year old class was weak this year due to direct stocking and no pens, it will be noticeable. 

[Gill-T]

Take time to go thru these videos. Much of the hard work on maintaining a quality fishery in Canada falls to fishing clubs. 
 

https://www.lakehuronfishingclub.com/

[jason]

All I want to know is why I can't catch these kings witb a bobber and worm while I'm naked drinking whiskey.   

[Gill-T]

50 minutes ago, jason said:

All I want to know is why I can't catch these kings witb a bobber and worm while I'm naked drinking whiskey.   

Must be the size of the worm.