Lake Ontario Fishing Forum Trout Salmon Sport Fishing Charter

State of the Lake 2009 & GLFC Lake Ontario Fish Community objectives meeting held at RIT by NYSDEC Lake Unit & Monroe County Fisheries Advisory Board. 3/10/09. Attendance roughly 110

Started with a remembrance of Joe Riefer & moment of silence.  The 1st half of the meeting consisted of really abbreviated DEC presentations & 2nd was a discussion of proposed new GLFC Lake Ontario Fish community objectives.

Presentations were more descriptive than quantitative. A copy of the Annual Report Executive Summary along with proposed objectives and a questionnaire on the objectives was passed out during half time.

REGULATION CHANGES:  No fish with a size minimum size limit may be dismembered (filleted) on the waters of NYS to ensure ID.  (Gutting is okay but you have to leave head, skin & fins intact)  This is the only reg change for the upcoming period.

ANGLER SURVEYS:

• Expenditures by Big-O fishermen were $114.5M.  $75.8M was spent by those fishing the open water.  2nd was by those fishing the Salmon River.  Those fishing the Genny spent $2.4M. (Genny was 5th or 6th down the list)
• 70.6K fishing trips made to Big O, of which 52.1K were for Trout & Salmon. (T&S)  This is down 11% from 2007 but in keeping with the 5 yr average.
• 128K T&S caught, 79.1K harvested of which Kings were 43.6% & 45% respectively.  Rainbows were the second most caught with 27% & 25% resp.
• 13K Bass trips were made.  This is 36% lower than the 5 yr average.  Those who were successful catching Bass caught “really big” fish.  Gobies were the 2nd most caught fish by Bass anglers.
• Catch rate for charters: The last 6 yrs have had the highest catch rates for Kings on record.  08 was the lowest of these 6 years. (.081 per angler hour).  Rainbow/Stlhd catch rate was the highest on record.  Browns caught on the east end of the lake were the highest on record for that section of the lake, overall Brown catch rate per angler hour was below 5 yr average (half of 07 catch rate).  Coho was down from last year highest on record.  Lakers were down as abundance is down.  The Laker population is not expected to improve at the moment.

FORAGE ASSESSMENT:

• Alewife biomass doubled from last year due to the strong 05 year class.  Condition and wt has improved.  Yearlings look very good, however DEC not projecting another increase in spawners.
• Smelt are down & there’s no reason to think that they’ll rebound.
• Couldn’t assess Sculpins due to mussels.  They developed a smaller & lighter trawl net that should work to get better numbers but data collection has to start all over as these new numbers will not correlate to historical numbers due to the way the sample will be collected.  Standard assessment caught 30 Deep Water Sculpins, once thought to be extirpated from Big O.
• Goby population is still expanding.  Catches are more uniform along the southern shore.  Catches of Gobies used to be spotty.
• Red Shrimp is definitely in Big O.  Sits on bottom during day & rises at night.  Nearshore specie.  Definitely in the Alewife diet.  Many found in alewife stomachs.  (They may be the only “good” invasive so far.)
• Did not catch many sticklebacks, however they are not targeted by any of the trawls.

COLD WATER/SALMON RIVER ASSESMENT”

• 3 yr old Kings were 36.5” & 21.3 Lbs in August.  Salmon condition improved “dramatically” over 2007.  Otherwise 3 yr old Kings were typically 18 Lbs & 2 yr olds were typically 13 Lbs.  This is due to condition of Alewives being healthier.
• Weight of 1 yr old Kings increased markedly & was ½ Lb higher than all previous years.
• Age 2 Coho typically 9 Lbs.
• Stlhd did not reflect growth that Kings did. They were smaller than their long term averages with age 3 & 4 the smallest on record at 1 & 1.1 Lb less than the averages, resp.
• Water flow continues to be documented.  08 year class of wild fish appears very weak.  Seine nets on River did not catch as many wild fish as in 07.  The peak catch period was 3 weeks later in the season than in 07.  (I.E. in 07 the nets were fuller in May. In 08 the nets were fuller in June.)
• Survival of wild fish is still unknown.  The marking & tagging of stocked fish should help answer this unknown as well as questions on return rates, homing & straying fish.
• Wild fish do not enter into the decision as to how many fish are stocked each year.
• Marking trailer is operational & has been used at Sal River & at Ringwood.  It can handle 60K fish in 8 hours with low mortality.
• Stocked fish will have adipose fin clipped.  (Kings, Cohos, Rainbows) Some will have wire tags.  They should show up as shakers this year.  DEC is asking for help on reporting tagged fish.  If a coded fish is of legal size, they ask the heads be given to them.  They will try to set up “head depots” at derbies, etc.

LAKE TROUT ASSESSMENT:

• Alleghany should produce 1st stocking in 2012.  Fish currently come from Vermont.
• Laker mix changed to roughly half Seneca & half Superior strains.  0.5M targets met for both 07 & 08.  0.5M expected for 09.
• Juvenile survival index remained low.
• Vermont stocked fish re larger than previously received from Alleghany.  However it is not affecting survival rates.
• Seneca fish survive lamprey attack better than others after they are 2 years old, however Seneca doesn’t survive the first two years as well as the Superior.
• Lamprey attacks measured at 22.2 per 1000 Lakers.  This is “just slightly” above target
• Attacks on Browns have decreased.
• Sandy is due for lamprecide treatment this year.

OBJECTIVES:

The Great Lakes Fishery Commission (GLFC) is a federal commission set up via treaty with Canada to advise on policies concerning the Great lakes from a fisheries/ecosystem standpoint.  Each Lake has a smaller committee.  New Objectives are developed every ten years.

These objectives are “umbrella” type guidance/policies/strategies for specie & ecosystem management based upon consensus of all parties including stakeholders (us fishermen), gov’t agencies (NYS & Ontario) advisory groups, etc.  Objectives are only constrained by the ecosystem (fresh water, nutrients, exotic species, etc) and “tempered by social values.”

The proposal for Big-O is broken into objectives for 3 zones: Nearshore, Offshore Pelagic (surface) & Offshore Benthic (deep).  NOTE: these are not cast in stone & the DEC is seeking input from the stakeholders.

The verbiage for the Nearshore & Offshore Benthic zone begins with “Protect and Restore the biodiversity of the xxxx community, which will be composed if a mix of self-sustaining native fishes characterized by:

NEARSHORE:

• Maintenance of existing healthy walleye populations & restoration of degrade populations.  This expands to maintenance of: catch rates, acceptable mortality, and current commercial/recreational harvest. Additionally identify 3 additional historic walleye spawning populations.
• Same basic for Yellow Perch but adds a target for cormorant feeding days.
• Conserve & rehabilitate self sustaining populations of Lake Sturgeon.  This includes rehabilitating 4 existing spawning populations, re-establishing at least 4 populations to their known former range and removal of sturgeon from the NY, Ontario & Fed Endangered species legislation.
• Bass – Same as Perch/Walleye.
• Maintain or restore where degraded Pike/Pickerel/Musky populations. Same as Walleye
• Increase abundance of American eel to healthy harvestable levels consistent with global efforts for their rehabilitation. With measurement on the LO/SLR system and removal from Ontario’s Endangered Species listing.

OFFSHORE BENTHIC:

• Restored Lake Trout as the top deepwater predator with Burbot A n important predator.
• Increasing Lake Whitefish abundance in northern waters.
• Diversified native preyfish including a self sustaining population of deepwater Ciscoes.

OFFSHORE PELAGIC:

• The offshore pelagic fish community will be characterized by a diversity of Trout & Salmon species in dynamic balance with preyfish populations and lower trophic levels
• Maintenance of a trophy Chinook salmon fishery. With catch rates continuing at 1998-2007 average levels. With Chinook growth  & condition maintained.  Maintain current stocking levels with policy changes dependent upon T&S abundance, status of alewife, survival of stocked & wild fish, utilizing mass marking technology.
• Maintain current population of Rainbow Trout with current levels of stocking and natural reproduction.
• Maintain current populations of Brown tout & Coho salmon.
• Re-establish self sustaining populations of Atlantic salmon.
• A diverse prey-fish community with Alewife populations sufficient to maintain acceptable levels of Chinook salmon growth/condition.

Meeting concluded with a question & answer period, many of which I can’t remember.

I asked about the objectives state “protect & restore” or “protect & maintain”. They state the restore & maintain items but where are the “protect” items?  Steve LaPan replied that that means enforcement of limits, seasons, licensing etc.  To which I replied that the Invasives are the real enemy of the ecosystem & asked what is going to be done about keeping them out of our ecosystem?  He turned that over to a “planted” member of the audience who replied (I lost his name so I apologize for that) NYS is really relying on the Feds & the EPA for ballast laws, that NYS stand is fairly tough but is currently engaged with a law suit over ballast and can’t really do anything till it’s settled.  To which I referred him to a recent glfc news item from a Deluth newspaper that implied NYS rules/policies are nothing compared to Michigan, Minnesota or Wisconsin, that there is an uninspected freighter in the St Lawrence waiting to come in on the 25th and said I felt that the DEC should “put the hammer to these ships.”  To which the reply was a shrug, a look away & ask for another question.

Another question was asked on the justification of the filleting regulation to which the answer was that a lot of it is going on, most notably with guys cutting up Northerns on the ice.

I apologize to other questioners but “senior moments” kicked in.  Please add to this, I just had info overload.

On a side bar, I did get to ask Steve LaPan on the 3 ROD RULE.  The DEC appears to not be against it but he said it is in the Environmental Conservation Law of NYS so the legislature will have to change it.

Dan Bishop said he’d email me the reference to the ECL as it is not in 6 NYCRR Chpt 1, Part 10 Sportfishing Codes, Rules & Regulations.

Also they will try to get the full annual report on line much faster than happen last year.

Tom B.
(LongLine)

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