LongLine

I see your point Brian, however the question is still how many alewives are out there? If they can't determine that then the stocking policy is a mere guessing game. Instead of sticking to their runway theory, you'd think they could run a few kitty-corner trawls between the runways. say...maybe..105 in the runways & 15 diagonally. Normally the water west of the river is colder than that which is east. Last year the water west was warmer than that which was east. Last year a lot more big catches were reported off Durand than off Russel. You'd think the scientific organizations would base their trawls on more than just N-S geographical locations. After all, the Guardian did a lot of sampling. You'd think that at least the left hand would look to see what the right hand was finding. The bait moves, just like Skate reported. You can't measure what you can't catch. Tom B. (LongLine)

The question concerns Chinooks and the alewife population and I don’t believe we should let anyone side-track that on lakers, the Feds or the “crooks†in politics. The issue is whether they have a good number for the abundance of alewives or not. From the latest published annual report, we know: 1. They use “Fixed station trawls.†This means they basically have 13 N-S “runways that are equally spaced along the southern shore. They do not trawl in between these “runways†nor in other directions. (The Fixed station has absolutely nothing to do with preferred temperature of the fish - It's geographically not piscatorically determined.) 2. They concentrated their alewife effort at depths greater than 70 meters. (That’s over 200 FOW) 3. The hydro-acoustical gizmo was also aimed upwards that year in addition to the traditional downwards looking unit and it showed alewives population never seen before, near the surface. 4. The adult population has been nearly the same for the last 5 years but this year’s adult crop was very “plump.†i.e fat & heathly 5. They used “conversion†mathematics and allowances for the Yankee-31 net/gear. They also used sensors and underwater video to watch the nets/gear. Now my questions are: What about the miles between the runways? Could there be more alewives there or could there be less? If all the alewives shifted a little to the east, then an awful lot of them could have been missed. DEC states that random trawls would be more precise but they use fixed station because other lakes do. What about the under 200 FOW? Mild winter, warmer lake, could there have been an awful lot of them in shallower? (which Brian has already attested to, at the pumping station) What was the population & sizes of the ones near the surface that had never been seen before? (It’s been my experience that if you’re catching little ones then fish deeper for the bigger ones) How can the adults be fat & healthy yet no little ones? You’d think “weather†or whatever would affect both little & big ones. i.e. if no little ones then skinny/unhealthy big ones. Don’t get me going on “fudge-factorsâ€! Rather tell me how many alewives were netted in runway number 1 on trawl #3 and then tell me how many in runway #5 on trawl #7 etc. How about showing some of the video? Tom B. (LongLine)

Steelhead

Jerry - The DEC/USGS guys do a great job - don't get me wrong. The issue is that their trawl strategy is based upon the assumption that alewives are randomly distributed around the lake. This assumption is not necessarily valid. Those 120 trawls only have a 10 minute duration and they are basically N-S. If they were randomly distributed then when a fisherman sees a pod then he wouldn't come back thru that general area time and again, You wouldn't hear guys talking about, or having the "clean screen" syndrome. If they were randomly distributed then on every trawl the DEC/USGS would haul in their net with pretty close to the same number of alewives...each time. Interestingly, they never publish those numbers of quantity or location. They can tell us with pretty good certainty the mix and the condition of what they catch but they can't tell us with the same certainty the quantity out there. Hence they publish "relative indices." Also note: they changed the way they trawl a few years back as they changed the type of net/gear. Remember the "fouling" problem? Tom B. (LongLine)

Sk8 - I have long held the belief that alewives are NOT randomly distributed as has been the assumption that the DEC has made for many years. I think you just gave testimony to that theory. They are not strong swimmers and the currents in Lake O can be awesome. Tom B. (LongLine)

Billy V's Habanero! Tom B. (LongLine)

Best darn tire tread lubrication ever discovered!

A few tuna cans with some mothballs in them, strategically placed about the grounds.

ok, so now there are 7 cats on the bus but one only has 3 feet.....

Nice fish. Great day on the water. (Steelhead has a white mouth) Tom B. (LongLine)