GAMBLER

He retired last I knew.

Treatments will not kill adults. The issue right now is the adult population. We averaged 2-3 lampreys a trip! I had lampreys sucked to rigger balls, my probe and the hull of my boat. I have never seen that in the 38 seasons I have been fishing Lake Ontario! We need to push the DEC to do more than just treatments. There is new technology in attractants and repellants that could be used along with traps. Attract lampreys to tributaries that are easy to deploy lamprey traps and trap as many adults as possible. Put repellant in tribs with high spawning success rate to keep them out of prime habitat (as long as they don’t cause harm to other species). The DEC had Covid money from the government that had to be used on Covid related issues with the fishery, here is an issue that was magnified by Covid. Why not spend the money to correct this issue. Sitting back and doing nothing only hurts the fishery. If you think fish populations are an issue now, hang on because it could get worse due to mortality from lamprey. If man power is an issue, I’m sure tons of guys (both trib and lake) would volunteer to assist in the program. I certainly would.

My huge issue with the fishery right now that every angler Trib or lake angler should be concerned with is the lamprey population. This is going to do NOTHING to help fish numbers. What do we do to help correct this issue? You can lampricide all you want but that does nothing for the adults already wreaking havoc on out fish populations.

I dealt with Dr. Haynes for years doing the pen rearing. Good guy. His replacement was a great guy too. He gave Rob and I a tour of the Brockport fisheries facility. It was cool to see the fish they kept in captivity for research. They were a great asset for our pen project. Lots of volunteers and they got the DEC valuable information from our project.

Interesting. The professor from Brockport never mentioned that in the conversations we had on natural reproduction when they came out to volunteered with our pen project.

Salmon Creek in Hilton has kings. They haven't been stocked in 20+ years there and the salmon can't get over the falls on Parma Center Rd 99% of the falls due to no water. Strays. I would love to believe they both had natural reproduction but both tribs are not the greatest habit for natural reproduction. If you said Irondequoit Creek, I would be with you. If there was natural reproduction, where are all the fry? I have brown / steelhead many years on Sandy in the spring and I have never seen any clouds of fry like the Salmon River. If there are fry, they would never make the smallmouth and rockbass gauntlet in the spring in Sandy. You show me fry, I will change my opinion.

Here is a graph from the 2019 state of the lake meeting. If you look back in the 2000’s and froward, you will see the jump in 2 year olds as the majority that are spawning compared three year olds that are the majority.

I highly doubt Sandy has good natural reproduction. The fish in Sandy are more than likely strays from other stocking sites. Back in the day 3 times the fish were stocked BUT, we didn't have as much natural reproduction and we have better stocking practices than we did in the 80's. Pen rearing has increased survival big time. Pen reared compared to direct stocked fish the survival rate is 3 to1 from what I can remember from the meetings. Seeing that salmon are spawning at 2 and 3 compared to 3 and 4 like the old days, fish size is going to be down.

Size could be down for a bunch of reasons. We had stocking cuts and the bait biomass was lower than it should have been. This year class of kings had to exert more energy its entire life to eat. Last year the biomass rebounded with a giant year class from the years prior hatch. The kings ate well but they were exerting more energy to fill their stomachs (eating smaller alewife). Lets see what happens in the next two seasons to the size. If the year classes of kings that started life with the higher biomass levels have more food available, the size should rebound some. As for the comment about the fishery being run on fishermen's opinion, isn't that what they did with the steelhead regulations?

Atlantics have been a failure on Lake Ontario for decades. We have been over this more than the striper topic here, IF they survived well, they might actually get bigger and bigger.

I just don't understand why people cheat in tournaments. Your reputation is one thing you can ruin and NEVER get back again! Is it worth it? Hell no. I really enjoy derby and tournament fishing. To cheat and ruin something I enjoy doing would be stupid.

The Striper topic has been beat to death more than the Caledonia Hatchery topic. Let it go. If you want stripers, go fish them somewhere else.

Like stated below, the director thought something was up due to the size and the weight. He said he felt the belly of the first fish and felt a hard object in the belly. I watched a POD cast with the tournament director yesterday. He said the Cleveland DA has opened an investigation along with the Ohio version of the DEC.

and a brown

SOLD

All sold!

NK 28's $75.00 per lot shipped to the lower 48. $65.00 if you pick up in Hilton NY. Lot #1 Lot #2

$75.00 per lot shipped to the lower 48. $65.00 if you pick up in Hilton NY Lot #1 Lot #2

You cant hunt in the evenings after the awards ceremony when it gets dark at 5pm....

The ramp is going to be closed for a paving project from what I hear.

TTT