jerktroller

Not to mention that there were never lampreys in lakes like Keuka and Canandaigua yet smelt numbers are way down

Sale of gamefish is illegal. Gamefish means anything with a size limit. Since perch don't have a size limit (unlike bass, crappie, trout, etc.) you can sell them and it has been this way for many years. I remember reading in one of the outdoor magazines (probly NY Outdoor News) that DEC has proposed to stop sale of any freshwater fish a few times in the past but it gets shot down every time because of all the bullhead and perch dinners up north. Best thing you can do is keep complaining to DEC and elected officials.

Looks like this one covers hemlock, canadice, honeoye, and conesus

Any word on how everyone did? I know Seneca and Keuka produce some big perch...it would be interesting to see if Canandaigua has many 2+ pounders.

This is why people should attend meetings like the ones dec just had on the finger lakes. I know not everyone can make it due to their schedules but this topic was discussed at the meeting. This comes up every spring with people calling for closing the tribs, catch and release, lowering limits, etc. the number of young of year rainbows is not a lot different than it has been in the past so there are enough adult rainbows spawning successfully in the tribs. As mentioned in a previous post there is a lack of habitat for yearlings in places like Catharine creek so that is something that could be worked on

Honeoye and Conesus do not support trout fisheries. Not sure about Otisco.

I should have also mentioned that they are planning to make the ramp a lot longer. This will be a great improvement. It was really bad this fall.

Drove by a few days ago and they were still working on it. The guy there said they probly won't be done until at least the end of the month.

It would be nice to have some meetings with DEC just to get some communication going. Last time I talked with a biologist in Region 7 they said they were going to plan something like this and Region 8 was planning to do the same thing. They want to get public input and also recruit more diary cooperators. I have not heard of anything being scheduled yet. You guys are all correct about the changes in the food chain in the finger lakes. I know that Region 8 samples the tribs in the summer to see how successful the rainbow spawn was and they have not seen drops in the number of juvenile rainbows so closing the tribs to fishing doesn't seem like the answer. I'm sure there are other things that can be done. These are the types of things that we could hash out by meeting with the DEC fisheries people. Probably should get the game wardens involved to since there seem to be a lot of concerns about poaching on the tribs.

Lake trout get a different fin clip each year. Bath Hatchery or Fisheries in Avon would know what year got what clips. Like 2nd chance said-clipping only started in '04 so you can't tell if a big laker is stocked or wild

Cold Brook the 25th (weather permitting). Catharine depends on stream conditions.

I didn't say lampricide has never killed a fish. The point is that lampreys do not exist in Keuka or Canandaigua and therefore chemical treatments were never needed in Cold Brook or Naples Creek. There must have been some other factor that led to the smelt decline in these two lakes.

The decline in smelt had nothing to do with lamprey control using lampricide. Lamprey control in the Finger Lakes only occurrs on Seneca and Cayuga. Keuka and Canandaigua have also had declines in smelt populations and lamprey are not found there so lampricide has not been used in any of the tributaries of those lakes. It does seem like smelt are making a bit of a comeback though.