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Captains Vince and Bob have been working on this Seminar for us since last Spring. They have been very open to taking our input and incorporating it into their Seminar. They will be providing "Goodie Bags" to every participant worth at least the $65 admission price with relevant Tackle for Lake Ontario. The will also be awarding some of their best "go to" baits from their own boxs to those with the best questions throughout the day. So, the $65 admission price covers the price of the tackle and the Seminar with Lunch are Free! Ask a good question and you might even receive one of their own "go to" baits. The seminar is limited to 100 participants. Joe Yaeger

We lost another gread advocat for our Fishery in Duane. He was a very religious individual who's passion was fishing Lake Ontario. I met him at the Oak 20 years ago and we've fished together with our families at the Oak every year since except for this year when he was so ill. He was always the first one of our group out in the morning and many times came off the lake in the dark. He was among the best rec anglers on the lake. He always seemed to know where the fish would be and the hot setup to get them going. He openly shared that information with everyone that he could including Charters and Recs to make sure we all had a good day. Duane would always have a boat load of family and friends who would go out with him. He took great joy in getting individuals their first LO King especially the Kids with the hope that they would come back to the Oak and be hooked for life on the Fishery as he was. If he had a hot spoon and you didn't have one, you would find one in your boat the next morning compliments of Duane. I've seen him talk to guys at the dock that had a slow day and he would actually give them the baits off his rods along with his cell phone number so that they would be sure to catch fish the next day. He made significant $$ donations to our LOTSA Pen Rearing project at Olcott (annonymous of course) because he wanted to make sure our Fishery remained strong. He was just an overall "good guy" who always put others first, lived his life the right way and was a role model for many of us. He left us all way too soon, with many good memories and will be greatly missed. Joe Yaeger

Tim - Just got a call from Duane Jones crew of 4 that they can't make it from PA. So you can take up to 5 guys.

From Bill Hilts's Newspaper article: Lake Ontario Notes – At a Lake Ontario Stakeholders meeting in Savannah last Tuesday, in addition to things like the trout and salmon stamp being proposed and what was going to happen with staff and they relates to fisheries programs and hatcheries, a few items of concern came out. One was a proposal that would not allow any fish cleaning on the lake itself if that fish has a size limit of any kind. That would pretty much include all species of fish. While Niagara County is in a pretty good situation with fish cleaning facilities, the majority of the lake is not. That would mean boats would have to clean fish on shore and take whatever is left back out into the lake for disposal purposes – an added expense of time and gas. Another hot topic that was discussed was the push to allow for three rods per person in Lake Ontario. A move was afoot to increase the number of allowable rods from two to three on the lake, primarily for salmon and trout fishing. Hey, if they have to pay an extra $10, why not? The purpose was not so much for increasing the number of fish they can keep, but for figuring out what the fish want on any particular day – for guys with one or two in their boat. Michigan went to that rod limit a few years ago and it has been a success so far. However, DEC at the meeting said that there wouldn’t be a new regulation like that just for Lake Ontario – it would have to be all or none. Overall, there’s just too much opposition to that type of a regulation. We’ll have more on this meeting in the future.

This proposal was raised at the DEC Stakeholders meeting on 12/16. The below note from Mike Waterhouse reflects the results. Looks like we need to continue writing those letters! Joe Yaeger Hi Joe, The three rod issue was brought up at the stakeholders meeting last night by Kurt. Bill Culligan commented that it would not be until the next round of regulation proposals that it could be considered. He went on to comment that it didn't have a lot of support from the DEC side of the aisle. Just wanted you to know that it was brought up. Mike

Tom - Thanks from LOTSA for continuing to push this change. I wrote letters today on behalf of LOTSA supporting your proposal to LOSSC, Region 9 DEC Fishery Heads, Niagara County Fishery Advisory Board and both Niagara and Orleans Sport Fishing Promotion heads. We are also working through LOSSC to get it on the agenda for the DEC/Stakeholder meeting this Tuesday. I thought your letters above were very well written and reused alot of what you wrote in the letters. Hopefully the DEC is open to listening to their Stakeholders! Joe Yaeger- LOTSA President

Our Fishing Expo is on Sunday 2/22. The Great Lakes Adgler Clinic is On 2/21. The details, Participants, Speakers, etc are at LOTSA.ORG.

We've covered this topic a number of times at LOTSA meetings and would like to see this happen. We approached the DEC a few years ago with this proposal and were turned down. Hopefully they will be open to it this time. We have out Fishing Expo comming up in February. Most of the attendees are LO Fishermen. If a couple of you guys were interested in manning a table to talk this up and gather signatures, etc we would be interested in making this happen. The DEC is also at the Expo where guys could express their interest in person. - Joe Yaeger

We have spoken about this topic over the past few years at our LOTSA meetings and always come to the same conclusion that the best way to increase participation is to eliminate observers. Some of the Michigan Tournaments do it and get great participation. We would support the assignment of observers on the second day to the top 5 - 10 boats from the first day for added integrity. We also support culling for the Western Pro Ams as we put way too much time and $$ into Pen Rearing to have to kill all of those small Kings. - Joe Yaeger