DEC State of the Lake virtual meeting - Did you know about it?

[Yankee Troller]

So, I found out second hand about a virtual State of the Lake meeting the DEC was holding last week. I jumped on late, but missed so much of it I didn't want to ask questions that may have already been asked. My point is, however, why were there a select few people that knew about this? Not even the Lake Ontario Charter Boat Association President was informed of this meeting to help spread the word. There was nothing on Facebook or LOU either. I always have questions at these meetings and feel left out of an opportunity to ask my questions and get answers. I frequently get asked questions about the fishery from clients, people on the dock, and at shows. I like to be informed with the latest data and direction of the DEC.

 

There is some pre-recorded video data they wanted you to watch before this meeting. I will include the web address to these videos below.

 

• The recorded presentations are available on the DEC website at https://www.dec.ny.gov/fs/programs/press/LakeOntarioFisheries/

[Lucky13]

DEC Announces 'State of Lake Ontario Fisheries' Virtual Meeting and Video Series - NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation

 

November 12.   Likely would not have been much help without the power point pre-work.  And very easy to fo9rget during deer season.

[Lucky13]

November 19

[brucehookedup]

Typical DEC BS. Hopefully find some answers as to why no one was informed to this meeting. Not to mention what did they throw out on table that we won't like,,,,,,

[AnglingAddict]

I always attended the in-person.  Usually I feel fairly connected but definitely missed out on this one and would have liked to see it.  Do you know if it was recorded and available for re-play?

[schreckstoff]

As noted above, The talks we’re prerecorded and are all available to watch here: https://www.dec.ny.gov/fs/programs/press/LakeOntarioFisheries/

 

I do not think the question/answer session was recorded. 

[salmonboy41]

Didn't know about this at all either and then saw some random comment by bill hilts on fb about how it went. Definitely pissed about the lack of communication from the DEC. 

Thanks for posting the pre recorded link.

[rolmops]

There was no lack of communication at all.   the date was clearly advertised on their website together with above mentioned talks.

 all you have to to is sign up on the dec website and you will be completely up to date.

LOU is not the DEC announcement bill board. It is just another local private website

[GAMBLER]

2 hours ago, rolmops said:

There was no lack of communication at all.   the date was clearly advertised on their website together with above mentioned talks.

 all you have to to is sign up on the dec website and you will be completely up to date.

LOU is not the DEC announcement bill board. It is just another local private website

By only putting it on your website is not good communication.  They complained in the past about lack of attendance in these meetings.  The best way to get people to attend is to communicate and advertise these meetings all over social media.  

[Yankee Troller]

10 hours ago, rolmops said:

There was no lack of communication at all.   the date was clearly advertised on their website together with above mentioned talks.

 all you have to to is sign up on the dec website and you will be completely up to date.

LOU is not the DEC announcement bill board. It is just another local private website

 

Yeah, all the charter captains I know that are complaining about a lack of business are waiting for clients to go to their website too. The successful ones with excess business go out and put themselves in front of potential clients.

 

If the DEC truly wanted to answer questions and take comments they would have done a little more to promote it. When there used to be three SOTL meetings in the Spring you saw it on Facebook, LOU, and the President of the Lake Ontario Charter Boat Association was aware.

[Legacy]

22 hours ago, Yankee Troller said:

So, I found out second hand about a virtual State of the Lake meeting the DEC was holding last week. I jumped on late, but missed so much of it I didn't want to ask questions that may have already been asked. My point is, however, why were there a select few people that knew about this? Not even the Lake Ontario Charter Boat Association President was informed of this meeting to help spread the word. There was nothing on Facebook or LOU either. I always have questions at these meetings and feel left out of an opportunity to ask my questions and get answers. I frequently get asked questions about the fishery from clients, people on the dock, and at shows. I like to be informed with the latest data and direction of the DEC.

 

There is some pre-recorded video data they wanted you to watch before this meeting. I will include the web address to these videos below.

 

• The recorded presentations are available on the DEC website at https://www.dec.ny.gov/fs/programs/press/LakeOntarioFisheries/

 

 

It's true. I had no idea that this was happening. I heard about it because of a Facebook post after the fact. Pretty crazy.

[Legacy]

11 hours ago, salmonboy41 said:

Didn't know about this at all either and then saw some random comment by bill hilts on fb about how it went. Definitely pissed about the lack of communication from the DEC. 

Thanks for posting the pre recorded link.

 

Haha. I must of saw the same post. Honestly it has been the only thing (besides this post) that I have seen referring to the virtual meeting.

[rolmops]

You guys must be doing something wrong. When you go into the DEC website you are given the choice to receive all the DEC news blibs straight into your email account. There is the possibility to cherry pick what news you want and what you are not interested in. I had the state of the lake date announcement in my email and you could have had the same.

[AnglingAddict]

15 hours ago, schreckstoff said:

As noted above, The talks we’re prerecorded and are all available to watch here: https://www.dec.ny.gov/fs/programs/press/LakeOntarioFisheries/

 

I do not think the question/answer session was recorded. 

Sorry missed that in Rick's initial post....

[AnglingAddict]

44 minutes ago, rolmops said:

You guys must be doing something wrong. When you go into the DEC website you are given the choice to receive all the DEC news blibs straight into your email account. There is the possibility to cherry pick what news you want and what you are not interested in. I had the state of the lake date announcement in my email and you could have had the same.

It might be there but in the past there have been various channels of communication which all lead to "getting the word out" - between work and personal e-mails I am probably anywhere from 300-600 e-mails per day on average - almost impossible to keep up some days and I do miss things - just nice to have other forms of communication to ensure no one falls through the cracks who is interested in attending.  

[Gill-T]

I found out about it after the fact due to Bill Hilts fishing report in Buffalo News. I understand why you can’t do it live as zoom meetings can degrade with each person jumping online. Was LOTSA or ELOTSA given notice?  Hopefully the DEC can present at the Niagara show per usual. 

[salmonboy41]

50 minutes ago, Gill-T said:

I found out about it after the fact due to Bill Hilts fishing report in Buffalo News. I understand why you can’t do it live as zoom meetings can degrade with each person jumping online. Was LOTSA or ELOTSA given notice?  Hopefully the DEC can present at the Niagara show per usual. 

I cant speak for LOTSA or ELOTSA but the Niagara county fishery adiversy board was not notified. And we get all of the stocking notice emails for area 9 so it's not like they dont have the email list. 

Edited December 8, 2021 by salmonboy41

[Lucky13]

MCFAB was notified by Steve Olufsen, but I think he, like Rolmops and me, is on the DEC mailing list.

[yogibare]

Glad to see at least some people read my stuff in the Buffalo News ! There will also be a follow-up in NY Outdoor News, but there was an example of not enough time to get it into print. Some comments here about signing up for DEC press releases is one important step to stay connected, but I agree that there should be more communication to help get the word out. Did the members of the Lake Ontario Task Group know about the meeting? They are county delegates who should be one piece to the communications puzzle. They represent fishing clubs, fish boards and charter groups. If you haven't seen the videos, they were well done. When I asked one LOTSA representative why no one from the group called in or signed on (besides me), they said that they looked at the videos and didn't have any questions. Not sure if I believe that now based on these comments. I really believe that there were more DEC/USGS/Seagrant people than concerned anglers on the virtual meeting. Everyone had an opportunity to ask questions and there were some things that were not in the DEC/USGS videos. With announcements of an additional stocking of 100,000 Chinook into the lake in 2022 and an improved forage base, this should have brought many more people into the call. But if you didn't know about it ... https://buffalonews.com/outdoors/bill-hilts-jr-new-research-allows-for-lake-ontario-salmon-stocking-increases-in-2022/article_46f99152-544e-11ec-96b9-9be8cdc2ce28.html is the recap for the Buffalo News. I had the announcement in the outdoor calendar and in Scattershots on Nov. 28 to let people know about it: https://buffalonews.com/outdoors/outdoors-calendar-through-dec-21-trap-permits-regular-big-game-season-lake-trout/article_0f9b66e6-4ecb-11ec-b39f-839831f47a45.html. In this age in social media, everyone should have known about it.

[Chuck Smth]

Interesting discussion about the rollout, but I don's see many comments on the data here. 

 

I found the data interesting and stuff about natural reproduction was an eye opener too. 

 

We should have some bigger fish this coming year. Maybe not like they were in the 80's ( Those of us that were fishing then sure remember them!) but the fish should be well fed and heathly.

 

I would have liked to see some  data on the lamprey control and my experience in 2021 was more scarred fish and we caught some with lampreys attached.  I think I remember reading something about how all the rain had blown out the creeks and so they weren't able to treat them, but I can't recall any specifics. 

 

Chuck

[Legacy]

55 minutes ago, yogibare said:

Glad to see at least some people read my stuff in the Buffalo News ! There will also be a follow-up in NY Outdoor News, but there was an example of not enough time to get it into print. Some comments here about signing up for DEC press releases is one important step to stay connected, but I agree that there should be more communication to help get the word out. Did the members of the Lake Ontario Task Group know about the meeting? They are county delegates who should be one piece to the communications puzzle. They represent fishing clubs, fish boards and charter groups. If you haven't seen the videos, they were well done. When I asked one LOTSA representative why no one from the group called in or signed on (besides me), they said that they looked at the videos and didn't have any questions. Not sure if I believe that now based on these comments. I really believe that there were more DEC/USGS/Seagrant people than concerned anglers on the virtual meeting. Everyone had an opportunity to ask questions and there were some things that were not in the DEC/USGS videos. With announcements of an additional stocking of 100,000 Chinook into the lake in 2022 and an improved forage base, this should have brought many more people into the call. But if you didn't know about it ... https://buffalonews.com/outdoors/bill-hilts-jr-new-research-allows-for-lake-ontario-salmon-stocking-increases-in-2022/article_46f99152-544e-11ec-96b9-9be8cdc2ce28.html is the recap for the Buffalo News. I had the announcement in the outdoor calendar and in Scattershots on Nov. 28 to let people know about it: https://buffalonews.com/outdoors/outdoors-calendar-through-dec-21-trap-permits-regular-big-game-season-lake-trout/article_0f9b66e6-4ecb-11ec-b39f-839831f47a45.html. In this age in social media, everyone should have known about it.

 

Nice to see you on LOU!

[yogibare]

Haha, thanks! Read it every week Rob ...

[LongLine]

So I have had a bunch of things checked on that site.....but I have never seen a box for Lake Ontario news.   Do I need new glasses?

 

BTW, thanx for posting thee link.

 

Tom B.

(LongLine)

[rolmops]

1 hour ago, LongLine said:

So I have had a bunch of things checked on that site.....but I have never seen a box for Lake Ontario news.   Do I need new glasses?

 

BTW, thanx for posting thee link.

 

Tom B.

(LongLine)

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[Lucky13]

Yogibare, where do you get the idea that the Lake Ontario Committee members are County Delegates?    Have you ever seen a membership list or seen a press release about this group?  Prior to Steve LaPan's retirement, there was another Lake Ontario Committee, which consisted of 12 Americans and 12 Canadians, and this group was not chosen at the county level but to represent various stakeholder groups, so consisted mainly of charter captains and tributary anglers from all 4 regions, and served as input to Steve and Andy Miner for their role on the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.    We started meeting via zoom due to the logistics issues of getting such a large group to one place along our "inland sea", then Steve retired, and I, for one, never heard anything else.  I am sure some of the membership was moved on, I can't imagine Captains Songin or Perleoni not having a voice for the west end of the Lake.  But I also serve on our county Fisheries Advisory Board, and the existence of this new NYS group was news to us (2 of us were on the GLFC panel) when one of the members visited a meeting and started talking about the Atlantic Salmon Plan, which seems to me came out of the clear blue sky in light of the stocking reductions of the last 4 or so years.  I watched the Power Points, I must have dozed off as I don't recall anything about an increase in King Stocking.  Maybe this was added to the program as a " bone" to soften the memory of the stocking cuts and cushion the "new" Atlantic Salmon program.  At any rate, this will get discussed at the MCFAB meeting, via zoom, on Monday.

 

I agree with Rick about the poor communications, it was short notice, very poorly communicated, and there are much better times to get people's attention than Southern Zone Deer Season.  Unless you want to avoid the tough questions.

Edited December 10, 2021 by Lucky13