LongLine

Jefferson and "kids" moved north and exploring the area: St Lawrence 2 is a 75ft "tall ship" (2 masted "old time" sailing vessel) Kaho working off Oswego. Seth Green worked directly off Genny and now headed easerly.

Jefferson working the east end: "little cousin" working off I-Bay and Durand: Lake Guardian in Duluth.

Success with AS at Sandy requires forms of Habitat Restoration. ____________ HB - Please re read 1st sentence. AS can be compared to LT, as you just did. That they (LT) "thrive" indicates no further monitoring, experimentation nor stocking of LT is required. That won't make many guys happy. Don't know where 1868 came from. 1898 (AS extirpated) minus 1830 (sawmills) is 68 yrs. Detrimental activity: Houses (when were sewers put in?) roads? (Hamlin adopted "Sensible Salting policy) Hospital (Nearest in Brockport) Industry ?(???) More likely farm run-off, bank erosion, "mud seabed" and lack of sufficient canopy (Willows planted on SR. Lowered CND summer temps by 7 deg...wow!) Please re-read 1st sentence. Why no significant AS returns? Only 30,000 yrlngs of nearly equal quantities of 3 strains stocked at mouth. 10-14% stocking survival typical of all Lake fish stocked. (Only one strain of AS treated for Thiamine deficiency. SEB-TT) So 10,000 potentially survived stocking. Not every fish stocked gets caught, otherwise there'd be no runs in the fall. The 2023 survey interviewed 887 boat trips and reported 1812 Kings caught. Great results but there were 860,000 stocked in 2022 which means 0.2% of the stocked Kings were caught. (Doesn't include Naturals nor 2021 stocking which would drive that % way down.) What's 0.2% of the 10,000 stocking survivors? 20? (And you caught some.) _________ Speaking of Thiamine. Kings, Cohos, Steelhead, AS and LTs all have Thiamine issues. ALL Kings are treated for it at SR. Steelhead require much higher dosage. Only one strain of AS was treated. (Prior experiments didn't treat for it.) Browns don't require it. This recent paper deals with Lake Trout and Thiamine Deficiency: (less than 4 is "BAD." https://sealampreycontrol.org/pubs/fhealth/Thiamine Final report 2025.pdf Pg 6: "Similarly, in Lake Ontario, all sampled sites included eggs below the 4 nmol/g threshold, ranging from 13% in Youngstown to 63% in Hamlin (Figure 3, Table 1)." Of the 322.6K LTs stocked in 2023, 161.6K were HPW strain. HPW are from Huron (Georgian Bay) which have developed a greatly increased resistance to the thiamine issue since that lake lost its alewife population. hmmm...Habitat restoration is coming to help LT recruitment. (Why bother? they "thrive" - sarcasm)

"Little cousin:

AS gone in 1898, after 68 years of detrimental activity. And some detrimental activity continues still. 20 yrs is instant gratification. (In construction terms, a house can't be built in 1/3 the time it took to demolish one, although modern tools and methods have shortened build time.) "Powers" have been working on LTs for 50 years. Work continues on all species today after 58 years. The fishery is very good but no fisherman wants them to shut down hatcheries. __________ All creek and embayments are warm late spring-summer. USGS monitor says Sandy is currently 68F. What's the SR look like? Some claim the SR is primarily spring fed. It's not. It's fed from the Salmon River reservoir (Redfield) It's the hatchery that draws water from the river AND wells. The SR has had temps up to 84F. Sandy is pretty cold for at least 9 months.

It's Weller's Bay Natural Wildlife Area, Canada. On the west side of Prince Edward Isle. Go to previous NOAA custom site. Move cursor over map 35000. Zoom in a couple times on NE section and you can get tremendous detail. Go back to tutorial on that site for directions on how to save and print.

Gill - I think I've stated many times that just stocking AS there won't work unless some forms of Habitat Restoration take place (as noted in other places) and that further experimentation takes place. I.E. The "powers" need to stop "Half-stepping." I didn't make the decision to restore native fishes to the Great Lakes. Kings introduced to reduce alewives. Sportfishing for them came later. The recent experiment (30K fingerlings at the mouth) is showing better results than previous experiments. Although it's not yielded "instant gratification." Some AS Nat Repro has been detected in the SR. (view that video) With the SR restoration project; will it increase to where they out-compete the Kings? (As feared in some places on the west coast with accidental AS farm releases?) Time will tell. _______________ Chin'35 - It's already been suggested to install ice booms on the creek.

Refer to previous thread on navigation maps

Seth continues work off the Genny: Lake Guardian is in Lake Superior.

Alewives add to phosphorous loading of water. There was no uptick in phosphorous a couple years ago, yet alewife population did uptick. Phosphates and phosphorous are different. All animal life requires phosphorous. Not suggested that one seasons his food with fertilizer nor drink laundry detergent. Columbus predates Phosphate fertilizer by about 350 years. I hope no one is making their Kool-Aid with creek water: BTW: when did Sandy Creek households get sewers? Sometimes a little research is beneficial as to tree disappearance, including seeing what the Sandy town historian has documented. Mother Nature didn't cut those trees down. (where that sawdust go?) Smallmouth fishing is good. IF you catch one, it'll probably be a trophy. Closing off a section is just another exaggeration added to fuel emotions. So yes, Mother Nature has made her selection. Be happy with resident Browns, an occasional Steelhead and a stray King in the fall. (That's sarcasm) I support efforts to fully restore the fishery and its improvement.

HB - Are you serious, not knowing how man screwed up the fishery? It's darn good in your lifetime but that's only because in that time organizations have been dedicated to "unscrewing" what man did to the lake and preventing a repeat. I.E. pollution, habitat destruction, allowing invasive species to enter, all upset the ecological balance. Without those dedicated organizations and ongoing effort there'd be no fishery as we know it. The SR hatchery was opened in 1980 dedicated to the Lake Ontario fishery. Predator-preyfish concerns dictate it's nowhere near capacity. Disease concerns, cross-contamination, different water supply and expertise concerns dictate those fish be kept totally separate. ________________ As this thread deals with survival and spawning runs (AS) why not hire a fish farmer (like from East coast) to set up a small, protected farm nearshore a trib. Typical survival of stocked fish by DEC is 10-14% Farm survival is 80-90%. Survival from mouth stocking better than upstream. Why not stock a nearshore farm with the allotment of yearlings and have him "raise" them for months? Then simply release them. Try that for a couple years and see what happens.

Interesting day for research. Jeff couldn't seem to make up his mind to look at south shore or go north: The "kid" and the "little cousin" couldn't seem to find a spot to check out: Seth was working out of the Genny: Lake Guardian is at Sault Ste. Marie, looking to get into Lake Superior.

Yes, this thread has to do with Sandy as a natural spawning creek. The consensus is that it won't support Nat Repro (specifically for AS) even though it used to. Man has screwed up many tribs in the past, including Sandy, as well as the overall fishery. Efforts to establish a fishery have been tremendous. DEC, USGS in association with others deserve a lot of credit. Re-establishment of any specie requires analysis, experimentation and monitoring. Instant gratification with any animal has never been achievable, anywhere. Lake Trout was offered as a local example as experimentation has been ongoing since stocking began and will continue with Laker Habitat Restoration. (Soon to be undertaken.) I wish high success with rig sales. Habitat Restoration projects have been successful in NYS (also on the west coast) and are well underway on the SR. Federal funds are available as NOAA (the weather and mapping guys) chipped in a bunch of money for SR. To interpret questions (note ? marks) about reducing conditions (brought up by other contributors) as "proposals" may indicate someone's reading comprehension skills need improvement. No one proposed "rerouting the entire watershed." Rather the question was asked whether "some...controlled-directed"...elsewhere?" No need to mis-paraphrase with exaggeration like a politician. To bring up "contracting" in a fishing thread is totally ludicrous! No one challenged a specific contractor; only that codes & inspectors help protect clients from some that only provide a "look good" job. (Keywords: "help", "some") To continue pushing for more hatcheries for our existing fishery is lunacy given the care-in-rearing required; predator-prey balance; SR not at capacity; and that Hochul (some's favorite governor) recently approved $70 million for them. It's totally absurd to claim the current experiment (different from past and not complete yet) is a failure and then go back and edit a post with a report of catches in that area. ______________ Bloater and Cisco have been stocked to augment the food web.

"Little Cousin" put in quite a day and is headed back out for more. Will he finish before "combat" season begins???