NET PEN PROJECTS CUT

[bout time]

I POSTED THIS ON THE FAIR HAVEN FISHING ASSOCIATION FB PAGE

 

 

LENGTHY POST BUT PLEASE READ CONCERNING OUR NET PENS

 

I received a call today from the NYS DEC concerning the net pen projects for NYS. As we know stocking numbers are reduced for 2020 to 845,000 Chinook Salmon for all of NY. They have decided due to the reduced overall fish count to ELIMINATE several net pen projects on Lake Ontario. I am very sad to announce that Fair Haven was on of those selected to be eliminated for the year of 2020.

 

Their reasoning behind this was due to the number of current pen projects and the reduced # of fish it would give each pen such a smaller # of fish that the overall survival rate would not be as great as if they eliminated some of the pens and strategically placed more fish throughout the remaining pens

 

I asked them for the possibility of Steelhead and/or Brown Trout stocking for Fair Haven for 2020. They will be contacting the Region 7 Fisheries Manager to discuss and in-turn they will contact Myself. I a hoping to have an in-face meeting with them to see what we can work out.

 

As of right now the following pen projects WILL REMAIN part of the 2020 stocking program for Chinook Salmon:

 

Niagara River

Olcott

Oak Orchard

Genesee River

Oswego River

Salmon River

Black River (Jefferson County)

 

The following pen projects will be ELIMINATED for 2020 Chinook Salmon:

 

Wilson Harbor

Sandy Creek (Monroe County)

Sodus Bay

Fair Haven

South Sandy Creek (Jefferson County)

 

I will pass along any and all information as i get it.

 

- Mike

 

[Silver Fox]

“Survival rate”. Their full of s?!t. Something stinks. I guess they don’t need our data from Sandy and Brockport State College now. I’m done volunteering. Just another kick in the gut.....

 

 

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[BAITNH]

wow that really sucks  I do believe that  the pen  rearing has done very well for the fishing around Fair Haven   and a real good job was done taking care of the fish and releasing them .

[HB2]

Well that ain't good news . 

 

 

[Frogger]

Just weeks before the pens are put in...... what timing. Was there any mention of cuts on the pens at the open meetings that DEC had or were present at?


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[HB2]

And after thinking about it  , I'm not surprised by this 

 

Maybe they are sending a message ....

[Earl28]

I spoke with the DEC representatives at the Great Niagara show. I ask about the numbers issue and how they were going to address the reductions. It was looking like that was the path they may be on. They are using fish survey data to guide there changes. Has anyone questioned there interpretations. Sad news 

[horsehunter]

Anyone know what percentage the remaining pens are of the total stocking. Did you hear any mention of the Canadian pens?

 

edit:

highwater,reduced stocking, old age, wana buy a boat

Edited February 21, 2020 by horsehunter

[horsehunter]

Just heard that the number of Canadian Pens remain the same with a 20% cut to the numbers of fish in each pen. Can't see this helping the alewife situation.

 

What is needed is a MASSIVE cull of the flying rats.

[pvelyk]

5 hours ago, Silver Fox said:

“Survival rate”. Their full of s?!t. Something stinks. I guess they don’t need our data from Sandy and Brockport State College now. I’m done volunteering. Just another kick in the gut.....

 

 

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I am not doing Steelhead pens, especially if the new regs go in.  Kill pens for kings and ask me to raise fish you don't want me to catch.  Uh hell no!

[GAMBLER]

Pat, the regs did go through is what I heard. I am on the board for the Sandy pen project and I agree. I am done. I can’t speak for the rest of the board but my vote is mothball it. The fall spawn rainbows we raised we very little part of the lake fishery. We would see a couple brown fishing in August and September. But not worth the effort.


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[pvelyk]

Yeah, I heard they went through, not happy but would have rolled with it from a pen project but it's a slap in the face to take the kings away and expect us to put the effort in to the steelhead.  I completely agree with mothballing the pens.  Our private pens get put away and come back out when the kings comeback, they should not be "repurposed" . It is what little leverage we will ever have at getting a pen project for Kings back.

[HB2]

I'm done ? Leverage ? 

 

The DEC made us done . And we have no leverage . And never really did. 

 

I hate to loose the kings but I hope Nat reproduction will make up the gap . 

 

I guess we will see . 

 

I honestly don't think it will make much difference anyway . 

 

The kings will be pen reared at other sights and just keep the steelhead at the hatchery another month and power feed them . 

 

 

Will be interesting to see the blowback with the reg  change . 

[GAMBLER]

1 hour ago, HB2 said:

I'm done ? Leverage ? 

 

The DEC made us done . And we have no leverage . And never really did. 

 

I hate to loose the kings but I hope Nat reproduction will make up the gap . 

 

I guess we will see . 

 

I honestly don't think it will make much difference anyway . 

 

The kings will be pen reared at other sights and just keep the steelhead at the hatchery another month and power feed them . 

 

 

Will be interesting to see the blowback with the reg  change . 

The DEC still wants us to pen rear steelhead (fall spawners).  With the kick to the gonads to us lake guys with the steelhead regs and the fact that the fall spawn rainbows are a tiny tiny part of the lake fishery, I am not going to waste my time with them.  Some ports they are a great asset to the pier head fishery but we don't really have a good pier head fishery (and will not with zero kings being stocked at Sandy).   With the steelhead being managed for the tribs, its time for the trib community to step up and take this project over for their own good.  The thing that really sucks about the Sandy Creek project over the other three getting cut is 1).  in the past, Sandy creek pen projects  kings had the best growth rate of all the projects on the South shore and least mortaility, 2) We worked with Brockport college and they did studies on the Pen reared fish that was beneficial to the DEC and our project, 3) we had a huge volunteer base (unlike some of the other projects) 4) Sandy is a trib that draws a lot of anglers locally and from out of state for kings and browns.    I spend my time helping out at the Genesee River Salmon project and possibly the Oak Orchard project. 

[rolmops]

The DEC still wants us to pen rear steelhead (fall spawners).  With the kick to the gonads to us lake guys with the steelhead regs and the fact that the fall spawn rainbows are a tiny tiny part of the lake fishery, I am not going to waste my time with them.  Some ports they are a great asset to the pier head fishery but we don't really have a good pier head fishery (and will not with zero kings being stocked at Sandy).   With the steelhead being managed for the tribs, its time for the trib community to step up and take this project over for their own good.  The thing that really sucks about the Sandy Creek project over the other three getting cut is 1).  in the past, Sandy creek pen projects  kings had the best growth rate of all the projects on the South shore and least mortaility, 2) We worked with Brockport college and they did studies on the Pen reared fish that was beneficial to the DEC and our project, 3) we had a huge volunteer base (unlike some of the other projects) 4) Sandy is a trib that draws a lot of anglers locally and from out of state for kings and browns.    I spend my time helping out at the Genesee River Salmon project and possibly the Oak Orchard project. 

The DEC doesn’t care either way. They will get the numbers that they want with or without pens. The pens were only there to entice salmon to go to certain streams and then die. The DEC is mainly interested in maintaining the balance between prey and predators. They probably lost that battle because of chinook natural reproduction.
In the big picture, sport or charter fishing is just a small part of the overall health of Lake Ontario.


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[whaler1]

Is that true? I thought salmon were stocked to control alewife populations.
The fishing, tourism benefits were secondary.


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[KilliansRed]

This sucks, I did some repairs on the sodus bay pens to get them ready for this season and I’m going to do some work on the oak orchard pens in the next few weeks. I do the welding on my dime to help support the pen projects. Sodus bay got eliminated completely which pisses me off since I used my gas, material, and time working on them. I will do the work on the oak orchard pens as promised but can’t see myself doing it in the future if the cuts continue.


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[King Davy]

So the stakeholder panel met with DEC on 2/12. Anyone else in the room keep me honest if I miss something.

Only stocking the 835k fish this year. DEC put up several charts on years of study results taken from creel study’s wire tag results etc that showed no matter where salmon were stocked they wandered the entire lake and salmon didn’t hang near their ports of stocking either pen or direct stocked. Wire tags tell where fish are stocked. And caught.

And they had catch rate records (pie charts) with a break down of fish caught from extreme west to extreme East in the open waters of Lake Ontario. Example: The charts showed that fish stocked in the west were caught from one end of the lake to the other. Next they produced more studies from Dr Mike Connerton on salmon straying from pen or direct stocked locations and the results are straying was minimal.

Jana Lantry from region 6 and other biologists at DEC have done studies that there was greater survival of stocked fish when they were stocked in larger mass numbers wise VS split up into smaller pods.

Results of these strategies and studies brought three options to the table to the stakeholder panel. Two of the options were similar. Which cuts out the smaller ports and moves all of stocking to the ports listed above. All in net pens to achieve the best survival and returns to that port to spawn.

We the stakeholders were asked to vote on the options. The majority voted for option one that put the ports mentioned in play.

Can only speak for myself but I was in the majority on the vote. My reason was in this significant stocking cut, survival of the reduced number to adult stage was paramount. I do believe the data that states salmon are caught all over the lake and the stocking site didn’t impact the overall open water success and if studies are correct that larger groups of fish survive better rather than broken up in smaller groups we might see much improved staging fishing off the larger ports that will be this years stocking sites.

Disappointing for the sites cut out, but in the interim if this stocking strategy maintains the over all fishing success it will be worth it. DEC is trying to architect the best solution for success during this cut down in stocking situation.


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[Silver Fox]

It’s bull crap if a pen holds up to 25,000 kings each and we could of done 2 pens of at least 20,000 kings. I’d understand if we were only putting in half of what they hold. It’s all a bunch of bulls:!t and they can stick the Rainbows where the sun doesn’t shine.


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[Silver Fox]

This sucks, I did some repairs on the sodus bay pens to get them ready for this season and I’m going to do some work on the oak orchard pens in the next few weeks. I do the welding on my dime to help support the pen projects. Sodus bay got eliminated completely which pisses me off since I used my gas, material, and time working on them. I will do the work on the oak orchard pens as promised but can’t see myself doing it in the future if the cuts continue.

Thank you for your help and all those that donated money to these projects with now nothing to show for it but mothballs....All done, time to go fishing.


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[GAMBLER]

42 minutes ago, King Davy said:

So the stakeholder panel met with DEC on 2/12. Anyone else in the room keep me honest if I miss something.

Only stocking the 835k fish this year. DEC put up several charts on years of study results taken from creel study’s wire tag results etc that showed no matter where salmon were stocked they wandered the entire lake and salmon didn’t hang near their ports of stocking either pen or direct stocked. Wire tags tell where fish are stocked. And caught.

And they had catch rate records (pie charts) with a break down of fish caught from extreme west to extreme East in the open waters of Lake Ontario. Example: The charts showed that fish stocked in the west were caught from one end of the lake to the other. Next they produced more studies from Dr Mike Connerton on salmon straying from pen or direct stocked locations and the results are straying was minimal.

Jana Lantry from region 6 and other biologists at DEC have done studies that there was greater survival of stocked fish when they were stocked in larger mass numbers wise VS split up into smaller pods.

Results of these strategies and studies brought three options to the table to the stakeholder panel. Two of the options were similar. Which cuts out the smaller ports and moves all of stocking to the ports listed above. All in net pens to achieve the best survival and returns to that port to spawn.

We the stakeholders were asked to vote on the options. The majority voted for option one that put the ports mentioned in play.

Can only speak for myself but I was in the majority on the vote. My reason was in this significant stocking cut, survival of the reduced number to adult stage was paramount. I do believe the data that states salmon are caught all over the lake and the stocking site didn’t impact the overall open water success and if studies are correct that larger groups of fish survive better rather than broken up in smaller groups we might see much improved staging fishing off the larger ports that will be this years stocking sites.

Disappointing for the sites cut out, but in the interim if this stocking strategy maintains the over all fishing success it will be worth it. DEC is trying to architect the best solution for success during this cut down in stocking situation.


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Dave,

 

I agree with the decision for survival in numbers.  As Vince said years ago, we need to take better care of what we already have.    What I don't agree with is taking one of the most successful and highest participation projects out of the equation.  At our pen assembling parties, we would have too many guys which some projects cant say!  The Brockport College program was beneficial to all the projects on the lake.  For those that do not know, we would have a student from the college come to the pen site EVERY day and collect data.  They took samples at the beginning and end of our project to see progress and health of the kings and steelhead.  Rob and I got a tour of the College indoor hatchery and laboratory a couple years ago and they showed us how they used the fish we provided and how they got the data they provided. 

[King Davy]

Yeah I get the disappointment. When on the lake I fish out of Sandy Creek more than any other. Sandy is probably the busiest port of all smaller sites when you add up both the lake and trib effort for salmon and trout.



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[HB2]

Any chance they change their minds ? 

[GAMBLER]

1 minute ago, HB2 said:

Any chance they change their minds ? 

Not with the current stocking numbers.

[King Davy]

Gamblers right. With this years stocking numbers they are trying to maximize survival and if their studies are correct which I’ve always believed that we are catching salmon stocked from many different sites, this could minimize a down turn in catch success.


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