reelxite

I will agree that steelhead caught in the rivers can survive until they have been caught to many times, I see drop back fish all the time on the lake that I know have been caught in the streams I will agree with that. Also steelhead caught in cold water conditions on the the lake like April and May, have a chance though small because they are caught on long lines. But caught in July, Aug and Sept. when most of them have been caught on the lake they are doomed. There is no evidence that they survive if released, again it looks good when they swim away but I challenge anyone to prove to me they survive, a day, a week or a month. The mouths would not be just ruffed up there would be clear evidence with disfigured mouths and in my experience that does not occur. Like is does with Salmon which have a much harder stronger mouth.

There is one thing that I can attest to no matter how you treat a steelhead when he is landed fishing the open lake while trolling, even if you use a process such as a resuscitation/revival tank no one can prove that fish survives absolutely no one. It may swim away but does he survive? I can say this, I have caught salmon that I know have been caught before due to wounds on their mouths, I assume that they have been caught as skippers and received the wounds when being released. In my 37 years of fishing on the lake I have never caught a steelhead that showed any indication of being caught and released. I have caught a few that had small hooks in them which at one time probably had egg sacks attached but that is it. So even if this reg. is adopted there is no way to identify if it works. As I said before it is a feel good reg. with no way to assess its impact. Lets look at a little bit more of history, there is a very important condition that should be adhered to when stocking fish at a site. The water temp at the site must not be more than 10 degrees different than the temp in the delivery truck. A number of years back while delivering steelhead and salmon to a site for the pen project that condition occurred. The fish where placed in the pens anyway because once the trucks leave the hatchery they cannot bring the fish back so they have to be stocked. All looked fine when the trucks left, but the next day the pen project coordinator for the site returned to find 10,000 dead steelhead and 50,000 salmon swimming happily. Let face it steelhead are far more fragile than salmon. With that information catching a steelhead 80 foot down in 45 degree water and bringing him up to 65 degree water a 20 degree change is fatal no matter if he swims away or not. This stocking issue has since been addressed and there are alternate options put in place to handle it. The issue here is with the continued reduction of salmon stocked on the lake over the past few years and another possible reduction in the 2020 stocking on the south shore fishing offshore may become more prevalent. That being said more steelhead will/could possibly show up in our catches as happen in the late 90's under the same scenario, I know we as professional and recreational anglers do not want to kill any more fish than we have to lowering the limit to 2 will force us to do exactly that. Since our total limit on silvers will remain 3 and we will need to try to complete our box, we will still be fishing possibly catching more steelhead putting them at risk and most likely their demise. Leaving the limit at 3 will actually put less fish at risk since once we catch our 3 for each person on the boat our fishing day is over. I do not have to go over the reasons why we will still be fishing in the same water and this will happen since it has been covered many times before.,

For those of you who have not read the regulation change concerning steelhead on Lake Ontario open waters lowering it to 2. Here is the part of the new regulations that was published. In the justification portion of this document it was stated. “Four of the five proposed regulation amendments result from a series of meetings with a Lake Ontario Fisheries Management Focus Group (Focus Group), convened to determine anglers’ desired fisheries management outcomes and to seek consensus on management actions that will result in maintenance and improvement to high quality sport fisheries. The Focus Group was comprised of 16 angler representatives” I was part of that group and I can tell you that this was not a consensus at least 7 of the contributors including myself apposed this proposal. Here are the new regs: 2. Reduce the open Lake Ontario/Lower Niagara River creel limit for rainbow trout/steelhead from 3 to 2 fish/day -Rainbow trout/steelhead provide the primary sport fishery in Lake Ontario’s tributaries from November through the following spring. This potential change is designed to increase numbers and sustainability of rainbow trout/steelhead in the tributary fishery by reducing open lake harvest when Chinook fishing success in the lake declines and more anglers specifically target rainbow trout/steelhead. 3. Reduce the creel limit for brown trout in Lake Ontario tributaries from 3 to 1 fish/day -This change is intended to prolong high quality brown fishing opportunities through the winter months, while still allowing anglers the opportunity to harvest a trophy fish. Fishing effort on Lake Ontario tributaries can be intense each year from fall through spring and maintaining high quality brown trout fishing opportunities relies on anglers releasing a high proportion of their catch. Let me give you a little history of this new steelhead regulation, a number of years ago (unfortunately I can not specify the date). The tributary angler groups wanted to reduce the harvest limit on the tributaries to 1 because they viewed the fish in the tributaries subject to over harvested of a limited resource (only so many fish will enter the trib. and they are easy prey to anglers). The DEC agreed and we as lake anglers did not support it, but did not oppose it, with an agreement between lake anglers and the DEC Management at the time that they would not impose the same regulation on the open lake. All was well in the fishing world, but we knew in our minds it would only be a matter of time and they would come after an open lake reg on steehead. It started with the minimum size being raised to 21 inches, now they are trying to lower the limit to 2 on the open water, not unexpected. So now we see in regulation proposal #3 that they are going to lower the brown trout limit on the trib. to 1 for the same reason as they lowered the steelhead to 1 in trib. in the past. How long will it be till they come after the limit on the lake too, as they are now doing with the steelhead. Even though the DEC have again promised not to do so as in the past. I have no problem if the tributary anglers want to self-regulate and propose regulations that will limit harvest and size in the tribs. But we as lake anglers in return should be allowed to propose limits and sizes on the Lake. We as open lake anglers must oppose this regulation and let our voices be heard. We still have till Dec. 14, to let our voices be heard. Send your comments to: [email protected]: with this in the subject line: 6 NYCRR Part 10 Section 11-0317-Amendents to Great Lakes sportfishery regulation in 6NYCRR Part 10

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