GAMBLER

Did anyone attend? I was unable to go due to work. Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United mobile app

No eagles but I caught a cormorant off the Charlotte pier four years ago. Stupid thing ate the perch I was reeling in.

This evening I cleaned my sons hunting clothes to get ready for this Saturdays evening hunt. His clothes I purchased for him last season will be too small after this season is over. When I was looking for these clothes last season, I struggled to find youth sized clothes at any of the local big box stores. Anyone have a good place to find Youth hunting clothing in the Rochester area?

I do believe bait numbers are down some due to the two bad year classes but not as drastic as the trawls show. When the trawls changed from 10 minute to 5 minute trawls, I believe you can not compare that data anymore. Once it changed to 5 minute trawls, you should only compare data to 5 minute trawl data IMO. We did see a good amount of bait all over this summer. I can remember in the 90's and it was a miracle to see a bait cloud on a trip. If you did, the bait ball was covered with fish on the graph. We saw huge bait clouds and marked nothing on them at times this summer.

I find this comment interesting. If the DEC had a management plan to take account for potential risks, why do we have all of our eggs in one basket with all the Steelhead, kings and coho being raised at one hatchery? The steelhead, king and coho fishery is one disease or power outage at the hatchery away from disaster. This has happened at the federal hatchery with the Lake trout more than once now. This is an issue every angler involved in this fishery should be concerned with. One year without stocking of those three species and all of us will be in trouble.

According to your google search, the steelhead numbers are rebounding since the die off. Let it continue to rebound and not make the change in regs. The reduced number of steelhead caught in 2018 is a simple one if you spent any time on the lake. HUGE numbers of salmon inside of 150' FOW all season is one reason. The other is charters were boxing out on kings early and back to the dock. No one was wandering offshore due to a slow king bite to find kings offshore and catching steelhead. The summer of 2018, we had to fish deeper than 150' four trips the entire season on my boat. Kings were loaded inside and stayed there even after upwellings. If you do not spend time in steelhead waters, you will catch drastically less steelhead. As for the junk lines, they are set out to target mature kings. The legal bycatch (less desirable as you put it but are better table fare), that are caught and die go in the cooler and are counted towards our limit. As for steelhead under 21", they go back dead or alive on my boat. The law is the law. I don't like to do it but we are forced to. I don't know of anyone that has reached a full limit on a charter with 3 silvers each, 2 lakers each and 1 atlantic each. So if we are going to be forced to stop fishing once our limit is reached on the lake, are you trib guys going to stop fishing once you catch your first steelhead? I think not. The data posted in your post above shows the larger fish in poor condition compared to the ten year average. It explains why. With the current state of the fishery, 20lb steelhead are unicorns and will continue to be unless the bait rebounds. Having more steelhead in the lake so there are more in the tribs is only going to stress the population more and have a negative affect on size (more fish in the system = more alewife consumed and less availability for food). Mature steelhead cant hit 20lbs eating bugs. We caught a 37" steelhead during the Sandy Creek shootout in 2016 and it only weighed 13lb. 6oz. A 13lb fish on a 18+ lb frame. The fish was in poor condition. When the Fish and Wildlife guys examined the fish at weigh in, their comment was "this fish spent too much time eating bugs".

C&R fishing is not good for the alewife. We need fish taken out of the system to keep the fish numbers in check. All these new regulations are going making the alewife survival harder. First it was dropping the lake trout numbers to 2 from 3. Now steelhead.

The numbers are lower than 30 years ago due to the fact that they stock less. The steelhead die off also took a toll. Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United mobile app

I read all of these reports of 20+ steelhead days on the tribs all the time on facebook and other sites. I also know a bunch of guys that still put their time in on the tribs and say the steelhead fishing is great. Sounds like the steelhead numbers are just fine to me. If you are looking to see 20lb steelhead on Lake Ontario like the old days, those days are a thing of the past. Yes they still happen occasionally but they are like 40lb salmon. The lake has changed, the fish have changed.

Steelhead caught on long junk lines when the thermal cline is deep are toast. I don't care how hard you try, they are spent and DO NOT revive well at all. They go in the cooler on my boat. I'm not going to throw a steelhead over the rail that is going to have its eyes picked out by a seagull and wasted.

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