We need more fish

[GAMBLER]

27 minutes ago, HB2 said:

Brian , you can have your opinion , I have mine . 

 

We were told way back when that spawning salmon don't bite  and they won't natural reproduce . 

 

Both were proved wrong . 

 

Sandy has the best habitat by far to natural  reproduce any fish . There may not be a lot , but I believe there are some . 

 

Last year water flows were very high which IMO is good . And please don't tell me about smolt , temp ,etc . These kings are in the creek at 75 degree water .  If the eggs hatch , they have a chance and some will survive . That's mother nature's way . 

Salmon Creek in Hilton has kings.  They haven't been stocked in 20+ years there and the salmon can't get over the falls on Parma Center Rd 99% of the falls due to no water.  Strays.  I would love to believe they both had natural reproduction but both tribs are not the greatest habit for natural reproduction.  If you said Irondequoit Creek, I would be with you.  If there was natural reproduction, where are all the fry?  I have brown / steelhead many years on Sandy in the spring and I have never seen any clouds of fry like the Salmon River.  If there are fry, they would never make the smallmouth and rockbass gauntlet in the spring in Sandy.  You show me fry, I will change my opinion.  

Edited October 11, 2022 by GAMBLER

[billbobthorpe]

At the last salmon school back in 2020 at the Niagara show I spoke to the head of the DEC (I forget his name at the moment) and he made the point that the goal was to have more 20-25 lbs fish than 30+ lbs fish like years ago. Using all the tools like managing the food supply to stocking programs. He was confident the data showed the health of the salmon fishery despite the objection of a number of us there. If I remember right after that show they announced the reduction in the Penn rearing project. Go figure. I will be going to the show this year and I would think the DEC will be there as well and intend to bring up these issues. Some of you may already have but he is interesting to talk to. They usually come to the meet and greet Friday evening and you get to talk to them individually in a small setting (which is really cool of them) and they are a little more talkative. We always hear about the science and the data. I wish they would take more input from the fishermen. Especially you character captains and veterans of the fishery. I don't fish as often as I like or as most of you folks but even my buddies and I notice the changes happening. Looking forward to the show and maybe see some of you folks there.
Tight lines

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[Gill-T]

Lake Michigan continues a downward spiral on bait numbers. Almost criminal the amount of lost alewives due to overstocking of Lake Trout. 
 

 

[King Davy]

On 10/9/2022 at 8:42 AM, Legacy said:

I think it is very important for everyone to read this from start to finish. Many of the decisions now are based on this data.

 

http://www.glfc.org/pubs/lake_committees/ontario/Weideletal_AprilPreyFishSurveyAlewifeAssess2022.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1hfVH3VE8xjOu8az1YILo7pbU4pE7SkbA-e-r-QKEC5oBDu2iangxp0uU

I

[King Davy]

Sorry for recoping the link. Problem with Sandy is it gets lots of anchor ice. If spawning occurs and the eggs and or fry get trapped under the anchor ice they don’t survive. However when seining started in the salmon river. DEC along with help from Brockport State did some seining at the mouth of Sandy in June and captured wild Chinook salmon.

 

I see many pods of Par salmon in the spring. But nobody knows what the survival rate of those natural repo fish are and why trying to mange for available forage on stocking decisions is difficult and lends itself to models etc.

 

I agree with Capt. Vince that our salmon have evolved and don’t have the same life cycle they did in the 80’s. I have no idea what the data looks like on average weight etc, either up down or normal, but my experience is these fish still seem to fit their length with regards to average girth. I haven’t experienced long skinny salmon, which would be the beginning of being alarmed.

[GAMBLER]

23 minutes ago, King Davy said:

Sorry for recoping the link. Problem with Sandy is it gets lots of anchor ice. If spawning occurs and the eggs and or fry get trapped under the anchor ice they don’t survive. However when seining started in the salmon river. DEC along with help from Brockport State did some seining at the mouth of Sandy in June and captured wild Chinook salmon.

 

I see many pods of Par salmon in the spring. But nobody knows what the survival rate of those natural repo fish are and why trying to mange for available forage on stocking decisions is difficult and lends itself to models etc.

 

I agree with Capt. Vince that our salmon have evolved and don’t have the same life cycle they did in the 80’s. I have no idea what the data looks like on average weight etc, either up down or normal, but my experience is these fish still seem to fit their length with regards to average girth. I haven’t experienced long skinny salmon, which would be the beginning of being alarmed.

Interesting.  The professor from Brockport never mentioned that in the conversations we had on natural reproduction when they came out to volunteered with our pen project.  

[Crestliner]

I have seen king salmon in Irondequoit creek up in Mendon where creek is only 2 ft wide.I would think this is all natural spawning.Don't know of Dec  stocks king on this creek or not but it's fun to see!

 

[HB2]

King salmon are native to the Pacific Northwest from northern California to Alaska in the ocean  . They run huge glacial rivers to spawn.  A mighty mean environment . They are not dainty by any means . They are extremely strong fish  with a strong will to survive . So I think at least some fry survive to return to spawn as adults . Some years better than others . 

If the eggs hatch , they have a chance . If there is fry at the mouth , how would they ever know if any survive and return . 

 

And maybe some of those strays in Hilton spawned years ago and their fry imprinted to that stream and some of those are natural reproduced return fish.  Not as far fetched as you might think . 

[King Davy]

On 10/9/2022 at 8:42 AM, Legacy said:

 

I

Edited October 11, 2022 by King Davy

[King Davy]

Gambler Dr Jim Haynes from Brockport was the faculty lead. I believe this was late 90’s. I believe they also investigated Oak Orchard. The report was made public and I had a copy but have no idea where it is 20 years later.

 

And yes on high water years I’ve found salmon par up in Fishers along with steelhead par.

[Crestliner]

Caught some nice steelies and kings in Fishers. The kings are pretty beat up by the time they get there. They are in there now.

[GAMBLER]

11 hours ago, King Davy said:

Gambler Dr Jim Haynes from Brockport was the faculty lead. I believe this was late 90’s. I believe they also investigated Oak Orchard. The report was made public and I had a copy but have no idea where it is 20 years later.

 

And yes on high water years I’ve found salmon par up in Fishers along with steelhead par.

I dealt with Dr. Haynes for years doing the pen rearing.  Good guy.  His replacement was a great guy too.  He gave Rob and I a tour of the Brockport fisheries facility.  It was cool to see the fish they kept in captivity for research.  They were a great asset for our pen project.  Lots of volunteers and they got the DEC valuable information from our project.  

[Yankee Troller]

16 hours ago, GAMBLER said:

 

I don't know when the pen projects started, but a few years prior to 2011 something changed in our fishery. The amount two year old matures has been consistently high since then,

[brucehookedup]

On 10/9/2022 at 11:27 AM, rolmops said:

My big problem here is the fact that the people working to increase the stocking numbers are charter boat captains. They have a financial interest. A lot of commercial and charter people on the Atlantic coast fought for more fish and in their short sighted financial greed they destroyed the cod stocks . To all you charter boat captains. You should be wise guardians not short term profit seekers.

 

You always have something stupid to say. You don't think for one minute the anglers out fishing would not want more action??

[Gill-T]

Keep in mind kings spawning at 2 years old short the system and fishermen by 30 %. Perhaps lake managers need to reconsider how long kings are actually out in the lake when determining stocking numbers with consideration for studying the fish selection process at Altmar during egg collection. We have heard stories reported here on LOU of visitors noticing 2 year olds being selected for stripping. It would be nice to have some data behind the theory of Altmar unnatural selection. 

[HB2]

I have landed some big kings the last few weeks . And I have landed a lot of " jacks " also and seen other anglers do the same . More than any other year . 

2 hours ago, brucehookedup said:

You always have something stupid to say. You don't think for one minute the anglers out fishing would not want more action??

 

I think we all would like better fishing. But if DEC listens to some of the loud voices out there , seemingly most with financial interests , and pack the lake with kings it could be catastrophic. It took decades for Michigan to bounce back from their mistake . I'm 64 , that could be the rest of my life . So I'm in agreement with the " be on the safe side " approach . 

 

The bait is   not there  , they can't make it magically appear . 

[Traveling Circus]

I'd estimate were boating 35% jacks in the creek this "skein" season.......... I think I've caught more juvis this season than the last 15 years combined.......NBS...... something is different.

 

fished the oak yesterday in the afternoon and no juvis, just matures, but its only 1 days worth of "data".

Edited October 12, 2022 by Traveling Circus

[Grand Slam11]

When the hatchery is striping eggs from the smaller fish because they are easier to handle it only makes sense their off spring will be smaller 

[rolmops]

12 hours ago, brucehookedup said:

You always have something stupid to say. You don't think for one minute the anglers out fishing would not want more action??

You sidestepped my statement by trying to insult me. On top of that, you claim to know what “the” other people want. Do you really believe that “the other anglers” want you to represent them?

[GAMBLER]

My huge issue with the fishery right now that every angler Trib or lake angler should be concerned with is the lamprey population.  This is going to do NOTHING to help fish numbers.  What do we do to help correct this issue?  You can lampricide all you want but that does nothing for the adults already wreaking havoc on out fish populations.

[Crestliner]

More than 50per cent of kings caught in palaski had lamprey marks on them. Maybe even more!!!

[King Davy]

So Gambler, what would you propose anglers do? TFM is produced in Germany and only distributed for treatment by licensed agents of Ocean's and Water from Canada. I think I read where a team from the US did some treatments in 2021, because of the border closings. So maybe one idea is to have more agents licensed to treat. Homework for you, research what it takes to ramp up treatments in the future, and how often a stream can be treated without harming other aquatic river life.

 

The target is the lamprey fry and I’ve been there when they treat the salmon and it also does kill the adult spawning lampreys. Got lots of snakes everywhere in the river bed. 

We need a cormorant hunting season, and layman lamprey treatment companies right?

[GAMBLER]

39 minutes ago, King Davy said:

So Gambler, what would you propose anglers do? TFM is produced in Germany and only distributed for treatment by licensed agents of Ocean's and Water from Canada. I think I read where a team from the US did some treatments in 2021, because of the border closings. So maybe one idea is to have more agents licensed to treat. Homework for you, research what it takes to ramp up treatments in the future, and how often a stream can be treated without harming other aquatic river life.

 

The target is the lamprey fry and I’ve been there when they treat the salmon and it also does kill the adult spawning lampreys. Got lots of snakes everywhere in the river bed. 

We need a cormorant hunting season, and layman lamprey treatment companies right?

Treatments will not kill adults.  The issue right now is the adult population.  We averaged 2-3 lampreys a trip!  I had lampreys sucked to rigger balls, my probe and the hull of my boat.  I have never seen that in the 38 seasons I have been fishing Lake Ontario!  We need to push the DEC to do more than just treatments.  There is new technology in attractants and repellants that could be used along with traps.  Attract lampreys to tributaries that are easy to deploy lamprey traps and trap as many adults as possible.  Put repellant in tribs with high spawning success rate to keep them out of prime habitat (as long as they don’t cause harm to other species).  The DEC had Covid money from the government that had to be used on Covid related issues with the fishery, here is an issue that was magnified by Covid.  Why not spend the money to correct this issue.  Sitting back and doing nothing only hurts the fishery.  If you think fish populations are an issue now, hang on because it could get worse due to mortality from lamprey.  If man power is an issue, I’m sure tons of guys (both trib and lake) would volunteer to assist in the program.  I certainly would. 

[Traveling Circus]

3 hours ago, GAMBLER said:

My huge issue with the fishery right now that every angler Trib or lake angler should be concerned with is the lamprey population.

approx. 75% with scars in the creek....... many of them fresh/bloody.....

[King Davy]

Gambler take the lead on this, get a hold of Chris at Cape Vincent , propose a plan,  have all your data and facts aligned for the new treatments. Questions for DEC.  How to pay for this, what resources it takes to employ the decoys and traps. I would be willing to bet there is a permit process that must take place to put anything like this in a stream. Research that and find out how to start the process.
 

Are there clubs and organizations willing to pony up the funds to help support it since it’s probably not a DEC budget item for 2023. Or ask them about where they are spending their Covid-19 cash. 
 

Great opportunity to take action from the angling community.

Edited October 13, 2022 by King Davy