King Davy

Gamblers right. With this years stocking numbers they are trying to maximize survival and if their studies are correct which I’ve always believed that we are catching salmon stocked from many different sites, this could minimize a down turn in catch success.


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Yeah I get the disappointment. When on the lake I fish out of Sandy Creek more than any other. Sandy is probably the busiest port of all smaller sites when you add up both the lake and trib effort for salmon and trout.



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So the stakeholder panel met with DEC on 2/12. Anyone else in the room keep me honest if I miss something.

Only stocking the 835k fish this year. DEC put up several charts on years of study results taken from creel study’s wire tag results etc that showed no matter where salmon were stocked they wandered the entire lake and salmon didn’t hang near their ports of stocking either pen or direct stocked. Wire tags tell where fish are stocked. And caught.

And they had catch rate records (pie charts) with a break down of fish caught from extreme west to extreme East in the open waters of Lake Ontario. Example: The charts showed that fish stocked in the west were caught from one end of the lake to the other. Next they produced more studies from Dr Mike Connerton on salmon straying from pen or direct stocked locations and the results are straying was minimal.

Jana Lantry from region 6 and other biologists at DEC have done studies that there was greater survival of stocked fish when they were stocked in larger mass numbers wise VS split up into smaller pods.

Results of these strategies and studies brought three options to the table to the stakeholder panel. Two of the options were similar. Which cuts out the smaller ports and moves all of stocking to the ports listed above. All in net pens to achieve the best survival and returns to that port to spawn.

We the stakeholders were asked to vote on the options. The majority voted for option one that put the ports mentioned in play.

Can only speak for myself but I was in the majority on the vote. My reason was in this significant stocking cut, survival of the reduced number to adult stage was paramount. I do believe the data that states salmon are caught all over the lake and the stocking site didn’t impact the overall open water success and if studies are correct that larger groups of fish survive better rather than broken up in smaller groups we might see much improved staging fishing off the larger ports that will be this years stocking sites.

Disappointing for the sites cut out, but in the interim if this stocking strategy maintains the over all fishing success it will be worth it. DEC is trying to architect the best solution for success during this cut down in stocking situation.


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Yeah Bob nobody wishes this prey situation would right itself anymore than I and I’m sure everyone feels that way.

It’s not just that good salmon fishing takes pressure off steelhead, it’s the solid runs of kings into rivers that attract steelhead from the lake months before they are actually ready to spawn. To include non spawning scout rainbows that are attracted to the dinner table of eggs and flesh.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the last 20 years all over Alaska. There’s a reason that king salmon and sockeye are the sacred saviors of those fisheries. They feed the trout and re-fertilize the habitat.

I know you guys will catch steelhead off shore. You guys have every right to. Bob I believe this reg is trying to balance the heat they’re going to take if the salmon fishing gets difficult. You and I lived through this last time. And you and I and many others had to fish for all species cause the salmon numbers were down.

And reading the reg rational that’s what it looks like. The guys I fish with and or are acquaintances have no ill feelings towards guys fishing the lake and how they fish or what they fish for. But we still want a shot at these marvelous game fish throughout the fall, winter and spring.

I truly believe that DEC is trying to keep both environments viable especially through this difficult bait fish situation.

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Yup I’ve met him.


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Not saying question shouldn’t be welcome. Saying the nasty behaviors yelling and all that has gone on at some of these meetings is highly unprofessional and not very civilized. And if you’ve been to enough of them then you’ve seen it.

We have to respect each other. Then and only then do we have a true partnership.

DEC is a group of appointed positions, yes by elected officials but do we not think a measure of due diligence is enacted to make those appointments?


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One other thing. DEC is under no obligation to hold all these public meetings, to show up to be scrutinized by those who don’t like their news. They do it because they care what we think. I know they listen and consider our feed back.

BUT... they have a lot of data, 51 years of past history that has tendencies with results that match up with past, existing, and probable future results to govern their management decisions. They will be the first ones to tell you not every decision they’ve made was dead on perfect, but they’ve had a lot more wins than loses.

They are up against the ultimate player. Who always gets the best hand ....Mother Nature.


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Rick, I guess you should ask DEC these questions. However They can’t participate in coming on this site. So ask to speak to them.

I’ve put what my “assumptions” are on why the current proposal. But I’m guessing. I’m guessing at what would make sense to me on why, which included the history of the 90’s early 2000 when the steelhead fishery in the tribs ultimately went south because of the increased harvest on the lake due to diminished salmon fishing success. Serious shortfalls of steelhead to the hatchery back in those days. The crash of the adult steelhead fishery in 2014, and 15 from the poisonous alewives. We still haven’t fully recovered to the fishing we had before the die off.

Finally everyone who attended any state of the lake meetings saw the statement DEC led the presentation with. They recognize the two marquee species targeted by all stakeholders both lake and tribs are king salmon in the lake and steelhead in our rivers. Which makes up the majority of the interest in our 12 month a year sport fishery.

From the very beginning of this program in the late 60’s has this been the basis of management strategy. Again my take... right, wrong, or indifferent is that in the face of another probable down turn in salmon fishing success after three years of cuts, (and we all await what’s next) still trying to get the steelhead fishery fully on its feet, they are trying to manage for opportunity in that year long sport fishery.

It’s clear there are many that don’t agree with this direction. But I know we can’t get this back to where everyone is happy until we get through this predator prey issue and have full salmon stocking again. That takes pressure off trout species, allowing pretty stellar fishing all year long. I am 100% in agreement that the fishery only becomes fabulous again if we have a full fledged king salmon program.

Everything else falls into place when that’s good. Last thing, our fishery managers, scientists, biologists, technicians, and staff have kept this fishery viable for 51 years through all these obstacles. At what point are you naysayers going to trust the professionals they are? Every other Great Lakes fishery has crashed hard, except this one.


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Just a couple of corrections here. The 25” size limit is up for comment that is a tributary reg only. Does not include the open waters of Lake Ontario. Lake stays at 21”.

Clarification- Bob’s statement in the copy of one of his posts above that “they” are now coming for our lake creel on steelhead. The “they” is not the tributaries stakeholders. He knows as well as everyone else in that room we never asked for a creel reduction in the lake.

We did seek the 25” limit for lake and tribs and it was not accepted.

DEC took all the discussion from the panel, held several internal meetings with regional managers and staff, also looked at past history of what other domino’s fell during the last round of King salmon cuts from the 90’s to early 2000’s. The steelhead fishery on the rivers was bleak at best returns to the hatchery impacted and they came back with this regulation.

That’s how we got to this point. Anybody who thinks trib stakeholders went in demanding creel cuts on the lake is simply misinformed.


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There are dozens of web boards up and down the lake from tackle shops to lodging, etc that have daily fishing reports on all these rivers not to mention Instagram, FB etc. DEC is doing stream creel surveys this year from 18 mile to the Black River. Talked to the young lady last week who was touring the western tribs. She’s done 800 interviews on Sandy alone since first of Sept.

There are articles in river fishing magazines that name many rivers in this area. The salmon river , save the Kenai in Alaska is the busiest river in the US.

I used to get annoyed when these waterways were mentioned but in reality it’s public news every single day. There is no stopping it. I spend a lot of my fall time fishing the sound for bass and tuna or the FL because I can’t get close to the LO smaller or medium size rivers and spend most of my time fishing them once the weather gets nasty. And this year winter started first of November.

Crowded rivers are a lot harder to fish then a busy day on the lake. But it’s a lost cause to sit around waiting for people to go away. Just go, set your expectations realistically and fish.

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Except for some brook trout ponds deep in the Adirondacks.

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Yeah the horse has been out of the barn for many many years on any secret spots in any of our LO tribs. I can walk away from crowds on some waterways and do, but since social media those days are over.

However you can share fish locations in the lake to include Lat Lon numbers and you can still find room to fish because they are always swimming.

If you want to fish any river in the Great Lakes including Canada you are never going to be lonely.




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The state TU meeting was also attended by DEC. We are involved in several river and stream rehab projects with them across the state.

Get a hold of the bureau chief of fisheries and ask him how I handled my presentation. Completely on the up and up sticking to the facts. The general council made a motion to have TU officially support these regs. I rescinded the motion explaining that DEC was simply looking for individual stake holders to comment with their personal experiences and why they either supported or not any of the regs. Not just the lake Steelhead reg. Feel free to friend me on FB and you’ll read the comments from attendees that after my talk appreciated why this isn’t a TU state or National initiative.

This was about trib anglers and there are many that are TU members that fish the LO tribs. From all over NYS. This was simply an awareness presentation and truthfully many we’re already aware and had previously commented. Everyone who enjoys this fishery has a right to have knowledge of current events and can get involved if they choose to. Especially those that don’t live along the lake shore and can get to a meeting from the Catskills, Adirondacks, LI, NYC etc.

It was that simple.

Yes there is a combination of pens owned by sites and pens owned by DEC. DEC has funds for pen materials and they got us materials to have two pens built last year for the Oak Steelhead. Seth Green TU did offer to pay for them but DEC had budgeted for them. So they incurred the cost.





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Gill you should call the hatchery, ask for Fran or Tom the hatchery manager. They can explain how they house fish. You have two species that stay in the hatchery for over a year. You can imagine this question has been asked several times. Best to get the word from the guys that run the show.


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Gill there is no capacity left to raise more steelhead. They live in a hatchery for over a year. Salmon has no more room. Caledonia is out from whirling disease, and the other hatcheries are at capacity.

Bob and Glen you raised the subject that I’ve mentioned several times in this thread. We know Salmon fishing should get tougher over the next couple years because of the stocking cuts.

You guys know that I fall on the side of believing the science and data collected by DEC, USGS, and MNR on the bait fish assessment. Having said that it would look like to me more cuts for 2020. Question is, will it be deeper, the same or say back to only 20%?

Either way five straight years of cuts will have an impact. You saw a post earlier from a drift boat And lake Capt. The impact on steelhead fishing in the tribs after the 93 salmon stocking cuts was monumental. I’m truly not sugar coating this.

Today we have a huge stakeholder crush on the tribs all fall winter and spring of anglers fishing for steelhead. So the reg is trying to curb the impact of what is going to have to be more pressure on steelhead, brown trout and lake trout, if and when the salmon fishing gets harder.

As far as fishing this year, I’m out an average of four out of seven days a week since Labor Day. Fishing hasn’t been nearly as good as last year. Now to level set I’m employing the least effect way to catch a fish by choosing to swing a streamer to bring the fish to the fly for that thunderous strike. It’s been way harder than last year.

But I’m fishing around bait and gear guys on the Salmon, Maxwell, Salmon creek, Mill, Irondequoit, Genny, Sandy, the Oak and Johnson. And Lindsey and I have out fished them which rarely happens bait VS swinging several times. Which means we may together catch three or four fish.

However there is a few reasons for the slower fishing. And don’t get me wrong you can find pockets of fish and have a good day. Number one other than the huge run of Salmon Labor Day on the Salmon we had a real drought from Labor Day until end of Oct. so we’ve had salmon and trout trickle in instead of being induced by higher flows.

The canal feed has helped some, but again not a massive move of fish. Linds and I hosted two excellent anglers from Virginia this same weekend last year. They are gear guys fishing hardware. We had them in the Irondequoit and Sandy. In three days last year they landed 20 to 25 browns and a few steelhead. They are back in town and after two days fishing Sandy, the Oak and Johnson... they’ve landed one brown trout.

On the Genny with the turbines down again now till spring there are some better numbers of fish near the falls and real spotty down where you can wade easier.

And then there is much colder water this year as you can imagine than normal with the early onset of winter in Nov.

Do I believe the fish are out there? I do, because we know the salmon fishing has been so good last year and much of 2019, that less pressure was put on our trout. But in years where we have poor flows, and less than stellar salmon runs the trout aren’t induced into rivers in hordes at one time. They’ll trickle in all winter long. As far as brown trout if the creeks and rivers aren’t flowing well enough they’ll spawn anywhere from estuaries to actually spawning at river mouths.

If there are continued stocking cuts it will be more difficult for lake anglers fishing salmon. Coupled with if this lake steelhead reg is enacted brings more difficulty.

At the same time as lake anglers May harvest more browns and steelhead it will have a direct downturn on trib fishing. And when after Oct in many of our tribs you only have one species to target all the way to the end of April. steelhead.

It’s not a situation any of us want to be in. It looks inevitable. And this has all happened before. One last important item. When the steelhead fishing hit the skids in the 90’s and early 2000’s, the Hatchery had some real dicy years trying to recruit enough fish to get their eggs to continue the program at or near its capacity.

We are all going to endure some tougher fishing conditions. Trib steelhead enthusiasts just went through this with the die offs in 14 and 15. I think we’ll have to because if the DEC is right we need to take pressure off the bait fish awhile longer. Meaning more challenges each time we hit the open water or a river.


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Ok can’t help myself Bob so tongue in check pen rearing or not you are saying steelhead have always been a greater benefit for trib environments so then the steelhead reg would be an improved path forward to benefit the tributary fishing of Lake Ontario!

Ok nuff fooling around on this.

Have a good night Bob. I know some of you guys would never want to do this. But I’d rather get away from the WWW, find a pub someplace and get together for a beer. We can still yell at each other, but more fun face to face. Some of us might actually like each other. First round is on me.


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Bob, so taking the pens away because of salmon stocking cuts takes away opportunity for others for a different species that wasn’t cut to where both lake and trib guys could benefit from hopefully getting fish to home in to a local river. What sense does that make?

And I’m not blaming Rob or anyone else for the message. So here’s the question. Let’s say DEC continues cuts this next year maybe even deeper. Those pens staying dry docked or will they be put to use for some good for the entire fishery?


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Hey Glen go back to the start of this thread. Bob said hey everyone write in and say you oppose this reg. Find my first response stating that don’t just write in an say you oppose you must state solid reasons why.

Then go look for Bob’s post stating he called DEC and yes you have to put in your reason for oppose or in favor. If I didn’t think everyone should have a fair shake I never would have offered the correct information so your thoughts and everyone else’s would be considered.

If you write in and simply email them I don’t agree they won’t even read it. You can try and pick a fight with me all you want. I’m not going to bite Glen. Just do your thing.


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Bob the first public awareness of these regs came out in Jan of this year with a comment period in Feb. was mentioned in all the state of the lake meetings in March. Maybe you weren’t at RIT in March but some charter guys got all riled up.

I was at the Sandy Creek Pen Meeting. (And Rob I thank you for being mature enough to invite us even if you don’t lean in our direction)

We heard exactly why you pulled those pens Bob. Everybody did.
The regs were out to the public in the winter of this year. So your time line excuse is bogus.. as was your reason to take your pens and dry dock them to not be used for steelhead. Which now all of a sudden seems to be extremely important to both lake and trib anglers

Next you are throwing the Younger guys under the bus for a decision to cut loose nearly 100,000 fish to feed the rats who were sitting in those trees right in front of the pens. So some experienced foresight from you and older long time veteran of this operation who was on site wouldn’t speak up and say... “hey boys maybe we should come back at dark” this isn’t a good idea.

It truly doesn’t matter what happens with these regs in the end. If they are enacted you’re still going fishing, your lake life isn’t ending if you can only kill two steelhead a day per man instead of three. The impact is minimal. And if your only catching steelhead and have your limit drive off them. Not rocket science. It’s a big lake with miles and miles of water to fish.

And if they are turned down life will go on. We’ll still chase fish in our rivers as we always have. The real problem lies in the food web. If those wild fish in the Salmon River don’t have a banner hatch the dark days are on their way.

If any of you would like to join some trib guys on some tree planting to preserve the richest spawning grounds in any NYS river as we’ve been doing for the past 13 years I’ll be glad to get you included. We won’t shut you out just because you like to fish the lake. We don’t care where or how you fish as long as you are in for the long haul on trying to preserve the fishery for everybody.




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DEC didn’t make it a priority. If it was we had people volunteer at Sandy and they did help raise Chinooks. Would have loved to raise steelhead there but you took your pens you lent them... in other words ...your ball and went home because your mad

about this reg. And you refused to have steelhead raised in them.

I drove by them as they sat dry docked across the street from the Marina, when they could be raising 10,000 more steelhead that I guess with all the fuss really IS important to lake fisherman with all the angst over this reg.

I’m sure you won’t be counting on a big in shore run of pen fish in 2022.. after the Oak king pen team dropped your nets at 3pm on a sunny afternoon with 500 cormorants sitting in the trees above them, and the one guy I know of Ron B ... tried to keep the birds off the fish with popper shells for the next few days while those birds just crushed those fish

Not sure why you risked 92,000 salmon to those rats in broad day light. If you were all too busy you could have let Ron know and we could have handled it for you like we did our rainbows in the dark.

And you’re no young pup. We are of the culture that if we need something we call our buddies or guys who we think can help. I don’t handle my business on FB or websites. I use and old fashion thing like a phone or at least an email.

There are many who have sat in our panel meeting and heard you say over and over you don’t target steelhead. Yet this current situation seems to have you all unglued.

I know the DEC is checking this site every day. And of course they are following this soap opera. They are getting and eye full of the us against them attitude when they are in managing this fishery for all. So keep it up boys. I’m sure it will serve you well come decision time.

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Well Bob, you and I have been sitting on this panel forever, with me representing trib stakeholders. A reach out looking for help would have been nice before you shut it down. I’m sure I could have helped muster some folks. Even though I’m over an hour away there are people out that way in Hilton, Hamlin and Greece that would spin up. Not many trib guys are members of LOU.

It should be all about working together my friend. Still seems to be a giant hurdle. Pretty sad.


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Yes I agree Gill. If the regs have been decided, the show could invite DEC to speak on the regs and tie in what ever the 2020 stocking decision ends up being.

My experience they go hand in hand. But maybe not. Be nice to understand for all.


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Gill usually the expo is the same weekend we are in NJ for a show. And I would imagine what ever happens with the final decision on the regs it will be decided way before the expo because if they are changing anything it would have to be in process to get the new license books with any reg changes in 2020 available by 4/1. So pretty anti climatic by then.


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Let’s be fair. The lake anglers have done most of the heavy lifting on the pen projects.

Let’s get over who talked to who and who didn’t talk to who. Bottom line fish have been raised for over 20 years thanks to Bob’s foresight in starting the pen projects. If we all want to catch these fish then we all including trib guys should help raise them.

Can we ever get past lake VS tribs and understand that we are all fisherman who love the LO entire watershed. And that all hands on deck are welcome no matter how or where you fish?


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