GAMBLER

Could you imagine the ramifications? Lost year class. Natural reproduction will give us some fish BUT, when that year class spawns, that year class will be smaller. Add in a low water year and it could be horrible. It's just a horrible way to run a huge business.

One hatchery and a disease or issue that kills all of our salmon, all the fishing communities on the South Shore will suffer. Not a smart way to run a multimillion dollar fishery.

Very odd.

Sorry about your lab Bill. Sucks. I just put my 8 year old lab down due to cancer in his sinus cavity. Get those bastards for trying to dig him up!

There are ways to sterilize eggs so contamination will not happen........

Congrats Hunter!

Congrats Tom and Rob! Now you guys can hang out together for the next 6 weeks!

I'm all for what is best for the fishery. This fishery pumps tons of money into the Lake O communities, creates jobs and businesses. When the season is toast for captains in Late August / Early September, we are not getting the full potential out of the fishery. Dismal returns make it tough for a captain to fill his schedule after Labor Day.

As a former pen project coordinator, I'm all for more pen time but with it comes many obstacles, Weather - Ice and high flows can cause mortality and pen damage. Man Power - Getting people to volunteer to feed and help is always a challenge. Sandy we didn't have much of an issue but other projects do. Rob and I went with automatic feeders which drastically reduced this issue. The third and biggest hurdle is getting the DEC onboard. Would it still be early enough to get more salmon to imprint? A study would have to be done to see if it worked. Solving it for Sandy is a lost cause. Our pen project was yanked for kings and will probably never return. Raising kings at Caledonia would be an easier solution. Spreading VHS can be controlled by disinfecting the eggs. Raising kings at two hatcheries would also protect the integrity of the fishery. If there was a failure at Altmar, Caledonia would have a portion of the kings and we wouldn't lose all our king stocking.

We can't get the fish much earlier due to weather some years. We had years at Sandy that were there was still snow and ice. Salmon pens vs. ice chunks or trees coming down the creek would be a disaster for the fishery.

Niagara County offered to fund a hatchery years ago and the idea was shut down by the DEC.

Congrats Rob!

It's funny you say big fish big bait. The two 40+" pike I have caught in Conesus have come on small baits.

So you are disagreeing with the tagging study? The tagging study showed MOST of the pen reared kings still return to the Salmon River. The excuse to shut down the pen projects was made when they did stocking cuts. They wanted to stock more kings in fewer locations for survival. The more kings they stock in one location, the higher survival rate (safety in numbers). The stocking sites were chosen by numbers of fishermen from that port. Sandy was cut because we only have 15-20 fishing boats compared to the Oak, Genny, Oswego, ect.

Pen rearing has been proven to increase survival and not much for returns. The smolts are imprinted on the Salmon River already when they are delivered to the pens. Moving the pens will not change a thing for return rates. There are steps they can take in the hatchery to prevent VHS disease from spreading.

Staging king fishing is still lake fishing. The Lake fishery should not end in mid August...... When kings do not return to the Genny to spawn, it leaves a void in the fishery for the captains and rec guys starting in late August. For a month and a half of lake fishing, we do not have the returns to the Genny to support the OPEN LAKE FISHERY. No kings = pressure on the trout. Trout populations will get beat up in no time when everyone has to target them to survive. Not a great way to manage the fishery for everyone. So screw the Genny guys because the kings are managed for the lake? The Genny gets 150,000 kings stocked and dismal returns. Like HB2 said, we used to direct stock and get better returns to the Genny. They limited the ports to busy ports to put the fish where the fishermen are and stocking in bigger numbers increases survival rate. The Genny is one of those. It shouldn't have dismal returns when a large portion of king stocking happens at this port.

The fishing Bruce is talking about is lake fishing. The dismal returns on 150,000 kings stocked is an issue. All the work for pen rearing and nothing to show for it. The offshore kings all summer are kings stocked all over the lake. That has nothing to do with returns to the Genesee.

I agree about Caledonia. I heard there was best in years casting off the piers in early September and garbage the last week or so. We had a lot of East winds and cooler lake temps at the pier heads in that period. Lots of stable weather and piss warm water around the piers lately isn't helping. We all know Caledonia is a pipe dream. The DEC has pushed us West end guys off on this topic for over a decade now. Someday common sense might prevail, and we can change their minds. I'm not holding my breath.

I doubt there will be significantly more hunters now. Seeing they have to take a bow class will keep them from doing it. If they didn't buy a crossbow and hunt without having to take the class, they more than likely will not take the class.