King Davy

Gator I used to live at 7 Bayview Dr a couple doors away from Vic Mason. And I’ve enjoyed many a delicious cocktail on your bar at Skinners back in the day. Ran my charter boat out of there until it got too frustrating to deal with the channel and moved to Sandy Creek At Jim Pascerella’s Marina. Had a lot of great memories with my dad after trolling the lake and getting a cold beer at Skinners.

Yes there is a big exciting beautiful world out there and while I don’t find fishing the open waters of Lake Ontario necessarily boring. To have the stick in your hand when you unleash the primal instinct of a top line predator to come kill a prey fish while you are the presenter instead of the boat and trolling gear for me these days…… is why I fish.

I still love it all. I’ve fished every ESLO or LOC derby, and chartered a boat for 22 years plus a ton of recreational fishing on LO since 1971. And then in 1998 I took my first trip to Alaska. I remember waiting for my small plane flight from king salmon back to Anchorage a guy who I helped duck tape his trophy moose rack to his duffel bag asked is this your first time. I said yes. He said nobody comes to Alaska just once. From fishing all over the Kenai peninsula down through Bristol Bay including a camping tent trip on the Sandy River in the Aleutians catching Bering sea steelhead while waking up each morning finding the wolf, moose and brown bear tracks all around our camp I decided I wanted to go to all the places I read about in Sports Afield, and Outdoor life. I sold my charter boat and passed my clients to other captains and headed out on a 25 year journey of fishing both salt and fresh water destinations. All with a rod in my hand experiencing the power and excitement of the “Take, Grab, Pull, Tug of the greatest game fish on the planet. From GT’s and Tarpon to 50 pound king salmon, 20 pound steelhead and 30 pound sea run Atlantic salmon. And dozens of other species you can’t catch here. From Africa to the arctic circle. While I still love Lake Ontario and its tributaries I don’t regret for a minute to make trolling my least style of fishing.

HB2 my experience is that most of that opening day celebration happens at Powder Mills park and since they’ll still be stocking over 10,000 fish in Irondequoit creek that scene will continue as well as their fishing derby’s for kids and families. I won’t apologize for TU doing stream rehabilitation work to help sustain trout. And I don’t think DEC has to apologize for doing what they do. Study fish. Many of you don’t understand that we are one of several cold water conservation groups in this area. Looking at water quality, habit for both fish and wildlife. How many deer hunters on here put food plots in to yeah kill deer but also grow a healthy population of deer on their land or leased lands. And it’s not just TU members who benefit for the work we do to enhance habitat to promote healthy fish populations. We don’t do any work on private property. Only where there are public fishing rights. So I don’t have anything else to offer. I’ve told you about the work we and DEC are involved in. We didn’t ask them to stop stocking fish. It would never be up to us. It’s their parameters and management criteria that decisions are made. Any kid or parent can fish for the trout in Irondequoit be they wild or stocked by Powder Mills. Plus any of the migratory fish that enter the stream.

That’s what DEC told me about ending stocking on the salmon. It sounds like the same thing for Irondequoit. But it could be two fold. Where DEC has found wild fish in any New York stream including Irondequoit since they did an in-depth electro fishing of it last summer and they find wild fish that they believe will sustain sport fishing they stop stocking it. On Oatka four years ago they stopped stocking twin bridges because we (I was on the shocking crew) found 300 wild fish in 100 yards. Honestly guys I’m assuming and I may be wrong they are stopping the upstream stocking to align their stocking policy for LO tribs. On the salmon river your SOL unless we get a good run of adult Atlantic salmon. They used to stock the yearling Atlantics up top of the river and now only plant them in the estuary. However the one and only case for a continued fishery of a LO trib without a stocking is the Iron due to its healthy population of wild trout.

During covid license sales went through the roof and are still there. As a retired guy I can’t find a quiet place to fish during the week unless I drive an hour and a half to the upper Genny. Or an hour to the cohockton. So plenty of people are out fishing everywhere. We run seminars for youth and take them fishing all summer long as well as fishing programs with girl and Boy Scouts and the city of Rochester at parks like Cobbs Hill. Lindsay for 14 years ran seminars to teach women to fly fish on the salmon river and we ran a fly fishing course for veterans for 14 years to where we had their graduation fishing the summer on the salmon. And since 2014 we’ve guided breast cancer survivors at an annual retreat on the salmon river out of the Tailwater lodge. And five years ago we lost having our summer fish. So I get the frustration. Again we’ve been doing conservation work on many streams in our area including Irondequoit for a long time. Where there are wild trout that need cold water we try to improve their habitat. Not sure if it was Cliff Creech or another biologist but DEC did rate Irondequoit as a wild quality stream as far back as 1979. And it’s actually gotten more productive. There are some big wild fish in there. My opinion of brown trout is they are fairly lazy. What I mean by that is if they find a location in a stream or in the lake that provides them the food and safety they require they don’t stray very far. In the case of this wild population of trout in Irondequoit they have everything they need. In the dead of August when we have stopped trout fishing many other streams like Oatka because they are too warm you can still find cool water in Irondequoit with happy fish. Lake Ontario and all its tributaries were home to the greatest in land population of Atlantic salmon in history. As were lake trout and Cisco’s. DEC while of course interested in providing a world class fishery to get funding through license sales is as interested in science and revitalizing native species. All the Great Lakes DNR and DEC departments are working on these projects. The huge increase in coho’s are not from increase stocking. You are seeing a successful class of highly likely wild fish. If you have ever been in the upper fly zone of the salmon river down at the paradise pool you’ll notice a little stream coming in there. If you walk up that stream you’ll find thousands of wild coho's and steelhead. If that stream that is spring fed stays watered through out a couple of summers those fish will reach smolt stage and descend to the lake. And it takes nearly two full years especially for coho’s. Each spring Dan Bishop of DEC leads a seining project from the hatchery to the DSR to determine the current crop of new salmon and any other trout that have successfully hatched. They see those fish that have made it in that study. Including finding Atlantic salmon YOY. The target to stock sabago strain of Atlantic salmon was 250k. I believe the most they’ve ever stocked was 150k. Let me ask you a simple question. If we didn’t have huge natural recruitment of chinook salmon and they only stocked 150k what do you think the lake fishery would look like? The Atlantic salmon program is not to replace any other species of salmonid. It’s to enhance truly the tributary fishery. Atlantic salmon like steelhead are primarily a river fish. In their natural setting they spend longer time in rivers than open water. And for those of us they target them and all the rest of trib anglers who just fish are catching a lot of them in Sandy and Oak orchard as well as the salmon river and we are working a study with Dr Mike Connerton in Cape Vincent to collect scale and tissue samples. You all know that tributary fisheries have evolved over the years to where most anglers don’t harvest their catch. I know I don’t because I’d rather eat a perch than a spawning trout or salmon. And don’t even start the rant of C&R kills tons of fish. It’s not happening and I’ll tell you why we know this. Cause you can’t hide a bunch of dead fish in the shallow streams we fish. The bottom of the stream would be littered with dead steelhead and brown trout and that just isn’t happening. The last few years the catch rate for Atlantic salmon from creel census supports that it’s a viable species to target. We’ve caught a lot of them and there isn’t a greater river fish on the planet. They can put on a show like no other species IMHO. We have a spectacular 12 month a year fishery in the Lake Ontario watershed. Why aren’t we all together on this fact. And in the case of Irondequoit which has been a fertile trout river since forever we have a LO stream that anyone can catch trout wild trout 12 months a year. The non stop us VS them mentality of lake and trib fisheries is foolish. We have the Disney Land of trout and salmon fishing something for everyone and we should all be happy for each other. Is it perfect? Pretty close. Is there work to do? You bet. But let’s let the folks in charge work through the science of keeping it mighty. You may not like every turn in that journey but remember one thing. We are the only Great Lake that hasn’t crashed in over 50 years of managing it. I think they know what their doing.

Ok. Nobody thinks these wild brown trout are swimming to the lake in mass to become part of the lake fishery. DEC is counting this as a wild resident stream population of trout. What they know now from studying the creek is there’s a 12 month a year population (a significant one) that lives in Irondequoit creek year round. You can catch these fish every month of the year. Irondequoit creek is a unique body of water that is home to trout 12 months a year that aren’t migratory.

Longline we are working way upstream in Penfield, Pittsford. All the way to Fishers. Nobody is running a motor boat up there. The predator prey in this stream is macro invertebrates not bait fish. We’ve done macro studies as well. I can assure you there plenty of bugs to grow fish with a collection of dace species. Natural reproduction is successful for king salmon on the Salmon River. Not so much species like coho and steelhead that stay upon hatching in a stream for up to 18 months. With the smaller colder tribs to the salmon river they would never survive the main river.

As far as the fish that went upstream somebody ask DEC what happens to those fish. Do they get direct stocked like all the rest of the LO browns. What happens to them if they execute this stocking plan. I will tell you that our local TU group will be doing cold water conservation work on the creek. We are working with the towns and the county parks on a wood is good program. Trees falling into the stream provide cover for both juvenile trout and salmon. Many times they are removed. Trees scour out deeper holding pools that are cooler and provide cover from predators. We’ll also do a thermal temperature study. Irondequoit has several springs leaching into the creek. As we locate a thermal relief area where both trout and salmon will seek in warmer waters throughout the creek we’ll look for opportunities to create habitat to improve holding populations of trout and salmon. BTW these are the same types of habitat improvements we fixed in the 90’s and early 2000’s on the salmon river and small feeder streams around spawning gravel and natel areas to stop stream bank erosion that covers important spawning gravel. Today the salmon river produces millions of wild chinook salmon, and small streams like Trout Brook, Orwell Brook, and Beaver Dam Brook is also producing wild coho’s and some steelhead.

Rick, Brian I’m sorry I don’t have the answers you seek. You have to call Albany and local DEC office. I’ll say it one more time TU had nothing to do with changing anything nor did we ask to change anything. I think I know why it changed and it’s what I said in what now half a dozen posts to this thread. Go ask the folks who are intending to change the plan. DEC has an algorithm in all tributaries in NYS that if they find a certain number of wild fish in a reach they stop stocking over them. They do that everywhere, but to my knowledge this didn’t apply to Irondequoit. It is strictly their LO trib management plan. i think there is a meeting at the Irondequoit fish and game club tonight. Show up and ask.

Well Rick, Steve did make that decision. It had nothing to do with TU or wild fish. It’s all about aligning the management parameters they have in place for each region of the state. If you pay attention to DEC’s operating model they are striving to make regulations and management of a watershed as vanilla as possible. If the reason to not stock nearly 15k browns when the Private hatchery puts north of 10k fish in the same stream to align with their stocking program for every other LO stream for brown trout then they are aligning their management plan. I still don’t understand why an angler no matter how they fish cares if they fish for only stocked fish. The wild fish bite also and if you follow the groups like Friends of Irondequoit (which is not TU by the way) you’ll see plenty of pictures of full bodied nice fish. Instead of crying about anything and everything how about you all just go fish. And stop the childish name calling. Whats that all about. As far as Atlantic Salmon every Great Lakes state is working on revitalization of Atlantic Salmon including NY. The DEC aren’t just fish farmers. They actually do a ton of science.

I just can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t be excited to know we have one of the few streams here that can promote wild reproduction of trout and yes salmon. Any fish that spawns in this stream it’s off spring has a chance to become a player in this fishery. I’ve seen plenty of chinook fry in Irondequoit and in the heat of summer I’ve caught wild steelhead smolts in and around Linear Park and many up in fishers. It’s highly probable that a fish who spends 18 months growing in this stream can swim north and become a part of the lake fishery or because the stream is exceptionally fertile in the case of brown trout decide to hang around. Today DEC raises their hatchery brown trout with wild milt from Oriskany creek males. The state is doing a great deal of work on habitat to promote wild fish in the ADK, Catskills, upper Genny, finger lakes streams and dozens of other in land waters. Are they elitists, or scientists?

Like I said Rick this is truly more a management policy than having changes made because of wild fish. I helped develop the Salmon River summer fishery plan back about 2018 that included a summer stocking of 3 to 5k yearlings and two year old brown trout. All the way up to the Upper fly zone which is 11 to 12 miles from the lake. The fishery was intended to fish for browns and Atlantic Salmon. a few years later DEC stopped the brown trout stocking for the reason I mentioned in my last post. It appears that this new decision is to align with the over all Lake Ontario open water and trib management plan. How can you who absolutely depends on wild chinook salmon and this year the impact of wild cohos in the system call this elitist? It’s common science everywhere in the world of fisheries to not stock on top of wild fish. The folks I know who are fishing to these fish are having high success. There is no reason that anyone can’t go out and catch these fish. And believe me they aren’t all six inches. Finally Powder Mill is still is slated to stock 1000’s of fish.

Last year DEC region 8 put in a great effort to study Irondequoit creek after years of reports of many wild fish present from Ellison park all the way to Fishers. So last summer they electro fished several locations up stream through Penfield. East Rochester, Pittsford and finally through Fishers and found many reaches with solid healthy populations of wild brown trout. In the higher reaches like fishers there were also rainbow steelhead trout. This decision isn’t entirely due to finding wild trout. DEC doesn’t stock brown trout in any Lake Ontario tributary below an impassable barrier. Why? Because they’d have to count those fish against the allotment to Lake Ontario. They pulled the brown stocking for a summer fishery on the Salmon River four years for this reason and this decision is now completing the Lake Ontario stocking policy. However the private hatchery at Powder Mill park will continue stocking for the exact reason to allow families easy access to trout.

Chinook salmon generally out compete most other trout and salmon species. But King salmon have a very short stay in our rivers as adults and certainly as fry to smolt status. Where Atlantic salmon, steelhead and coho salmon must survive for 12 to 18 months and in some cases a full two years in a river system for Atlantic Salmon. In my opinion having to survive at least one and possibly two summers in a stream is the much bigger factor on our south shore. However with the electro fishing and angler success we are seeing of wild brown trout in Irondequoit it’s proving that other species besides chinook salmon are having solid success in that stream of natural reproduction and survival. The state to date has not nearly met its stocking goal of 250k atlantics. While we are seeing more and more salar being caught on the lake and I can personally report very successfully targeting and catching them in our rivers they could be another opportunity on our river fishery as well as more diversity on the lake.

Brown trout and Atlantic salmon live together in many places especially in Europe. It’s been hundreds of years to where we had a sustainable population of Atlantic salmon in Lake Ontario when of course there were no brown trout. At least a large population like we have today. Brown trout are very aggressive but that includes them predating on their own. i think for me anyway, the focus is having a stream like Irondequoit that in 2025 with all the climate issues we’ve seen is pristine enough to host trout to wild stages. There is a fishable population of brown trout in the creek. I have friends who have spectacular days catching these fish 12 months a year.. These folks are excellent anglers and conservationists. They use only barbless hooks handle the fish with care keep them wet and enjoy the fact these fish were born and thrive in this stream. And they are leaders in taking care of the habitat which is key to the fish thriving. Nature is doing its thing in this creek as it did 100’s of years ago. Even though it runs through suburban Monroe county.