GAMBLER

What I am getting at Dave is we need to be on the same page. A 5 fish limit in Canada and the Niagara needs to be treated as a trib are two big issues that need to be looked into. The Niagara River steelhead fishing by boat is gaining in popularity. There is opportunity for the fishery to get beat up. The areas of biggest potential impact to the fishery should be looked at first. A five fish limit in the lake (Canada) and a three fish limit on a trib (Niagara) raise my eyebrows .

I just looked up the regs in Ontario. The are as follows: Atlantics -1 over 63cm Browns - 5 Lake Trout - 3 Salmon - 5 Steelhead - 2 I think the lake managers need to get these on the same page.

The bigger head scratcher is the Niagara. The Niagara River falls under lake rules. The Niagara is a heavily fished steelhead river and still allows 3 steelhead per day per person. Why isn't the creel limit at 1 like the rest of the tribs? What are canadas limits? Seeing that steelhead don't stay in US waters, their limits could affect our fishery. IMO all creel limits and seasons should be the same on both sides of the lake for Lake Ontario trout and salmon.

Didn't the DEC say at the one meeting that more steelhead are kept in the tribs than in the lake?

I have seen gill lice in a lot of steelhead over the years. Some of them seemed sluggish and some did not. The steelhead at the shootout was measured, weighed and scales samples were taken by the fish and wildlife guys that were taking samples at the weigh in.

The king of stocking brown trout! Scotty is my hero!

Using the LOC derby weights to gauge the steelhead size is not an accurate way to do it. Years like this past summer, the kings were available inside of 300' for most of the season. Less time offshore = less chance of finding big steelhead. Over the past couple of years, I have seen a lot of steelhead later in the summer in poor shape after returning from the tribs. For example during the Sandy Creek Shootout (last Saturday in July) in 2016, we weighed in a 37" steelhead that only weighed 13lbs 6oz. This fish was very skinny and did not fight at all. It is concerning to see them in poor shape that late in the season. Are these steelhead not as healthy going into the spawning run and that's why they are in such poor shape in mid to late summer?

Show me a study done on the Salmon river, the Oak or Oswego river where the steelhead are caught over and over again. After reading these studies, they are done out west. The rivers out west are bigger water and a steelhead may never even see a hook in a trip into the river let alone be caught more than once. Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United mobile app

The steelhead numbers are higher the closer you get to the Niagara River and the Niagara plume concentrates the steelhead (if you fish the highest concentration of steelhead on the lake you should expect to have higher catch rates). We do not have much of the Niagara influence at Sandy, steelhead are a lot further off shore and there are not the numbers there are to the West. If you fished the lake Lucky, you would know steelhead are a bycatch most of the year.

Dave, Catching steelhead over and over in the tribs may not cause them to die immediately but it does cause huge amounts of stress. Fighting drop back stressed out steelhead in warmer water can not be good for them. As for bigger steelhead in the 90's and 2000's, why are the fish smaller? Is it from lake fishermen harvesting too many (lake trips are down from the hay days of the 80's)? Eating a less diverse alewife diet? Is it from too much pressure in the tribs (trib popularity has seriously increase since the late 90's)? These are the answers we need BEFORE we change limits. If the steelhead simply are not getting bigger due to stress from eating alewife, a size limit will do nothing to help. If it is from too much lake pressure, than we need to change something. If it is from too much trib pressure, seasons need to be shortened. I know this could be a hard pill for all to swallow but if everyone involved wants a trophy fishery, appropriate changes should be made.

I emailed my opinion in when this press release came out. I think the DEC should do a study on catch and release mortality before they change the steelhead limits on the lake.

It is.

Sodus and Conesus are your best bets locally.