schreckstoff

A lure a: if you don’t mind, where in the lake were you catching the small kings in the fall? west or east end, was there a depth where they were common?

Trawl survey saw abundant bait in some areas but not everywhere but definitely  plenty of the 2020YC! The numbers are being crunched and fish being aged right now, data and reports should be out by early August.

thanks for the info on the small kings, we are most interested where folks encounter the age 0 Kings (the small 6-12” ones) in September .

Also I like the idea that having lots of age 1 Alewife buffer kings, seems logical. 

Excellent input, thank you!  Any one else out there have any observations?

This is the answer to what my next question was going to be :  Lots around compared to past years. This might suggest wild king reproduction was higher than average last year. 

Survey boats are still trying to figure out the puzzle of whether it is feasible (or efficient) to index age-0 salmon abundance in the fall.  

Are Folks running into small kings right now? If so what sizes are they approximately? 
 

thanks for any input!

Looks like a Cisco. Your not alone, the names can get super confusing. L Ontario has Cisco, which used to be called Lake Herring and Lake Whitefish, (bottom turned mouth). One of their deepwater dwelling relatives, called Bloater, are being stocked/reintroduced, and some people call them ‘deepwater  Cisco’. I think they are all pretty good smoked…but maybe not as good as browns!

KJL,

Just double checking if you thought those other fish were Lake Whitefish or Cisco? Just curious and no disrespect intended. For years I've been learning and amazed by your fish filled posts, thank you! Those fish in the picture look like they have kind of pointy noses like a Cisco, instead of the downward turned mouth (like a sucker) of a (Lake) Whitefish. Those 2 species are easily confused, in fact we have to use genetic markers just to tell the larvae apart. I was just surprised by the idea of catching whitefish given how low their population seems to be.

I'm always interested in learning about when folks are catching Lake Whitefish or Cisco and what people think is going on with those fish.  In my head I kind of think Cisco are caught more often based on what I've heard from folks like Captain Bliss and our understanding there are kikely more Cisco than Whitefish in the Lake and they tend to be up in the water where they can hit trolled baits easier than Whitefish that are more often close to the bottom. 

Thanks for all the great posts,

bw
 

 A few Other ideas to throw out there.

Spawning habitat improvements - increase reproduction success in main lake and embayment habitats, get local grants from Great Lakes Restoration Initiative to pay for it; Could also improve  early juvenile habitat (more cracks to hide in). Unlike stocking those investments pay out over multiple years. I’m not aware of any evidence that SMB supplemental stocking is cost effective but there could be new studies/techniques.
 

Releasing  more fish and lowering handling mortality could likely help, especially large bass. Some good studies from Queens University students and scientists on those issues.
 

Cormorant predation was shown to take a heavy toll on SMBs back in the day but then proliferation of Goby replaced them in the Corm diets, right? This was shown 10+ years ago in eastern basin, I would assume the same throughout rest of the lake but an interesting hypothesis to test. #studyCormDietsAgain
 

Lake Ontario productivity is half to 30% of what it was in the 1990s. Like gardens, crops, and Livestock, it is probably unrealistic to think the top fish predators will stay as abundant as the nutrient concentration and prey amounts decline.

SMBs are so cool!

Maybe everybody knows about this, but I just found this site this year and it is super helpful

https://coastwatch.glerl.noaa.gov/nrcs/nrcs.php

no issues with clouds

See I told you we could grow a 50 this year!

Thejigger I appreciate you posting the info.

I forget the rationale for the western zone changes that happened a few years ago but I can say I definitely prefer the longer into Jan season 

Possibly an Eastern Silvery Minnow (Hybognthus regis)

 This one had me stumped for awhile so I reached out and “the B-man” suggested Eastern Silvery. This was a new species to me, but appears we have it in LO and it can get confused with spottails  or other species. Based on the pics I’ve looked at seems to fit. Below are some of the more interesting sites I looked at about ESM.

https://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/94437.html

https://vtfishandwildlife.com/sites/fishandwildlife/files/documents/Fish/baitfish/eastern-silvery-minnow.pdf

https://www.turnerpublishing.net/news/2017/12/19/outdoors-in-maine-the-baitfish-bugaboo/

https://www.maine.gov/ifw/wildlife/reports/pdfs/SGCN_Reports/SpeciesConservationRanges/Hybognathus regius_HUC12.pdf

Some ice chunks coming down river and in harbor, water temp was 37-39 in harbor and just out front.
 

Couple of NRC boats cruising around, guess the steam plant had a small leak or something.

Saw a random ice chunk or two and quite a few logs bobbing around but otherwise the harbor and ramp were ice free from what I could see.  There were some pretty mudlines set up too from that rain. 
 

Brown time?

Rainbow Smelt & their comparisons & interactions with Alewife, an excellent topic! definitely appropriate given recent Smelt increases observed in Niagara Riv region.

Always happy to talk about nutrients and fishery productivity.

Salmon eating Bloater is also interesting, and I have to imagine they are already doing that well given the low Bloater #s in the trawls. I have a hypothesis that Chinook diets are more reflective of silvery prey fish relative abundance, no matter which species they are. If Bloater eventually make up say 2-5 % of the overall LO pelagic preyfish biomass then they’ll make up 2-5% of King diets. Looking at Kings in the Dakota lakes (Oahe, Sakakawea) shows how well they can do on Smelt and Cisco as forage.
 

All excellent topics, thanks! Feel free to bring up others. I might not be able to get to all of them in one talk but I’ll do whatever I can to address them at some point.

Bw

Swega harbor nearly ice-free. I’ll check the ramp on Friday and report on its condition.

Wondering what folks are interested in hearing about or discussing at LOCBA Mtg on Mar 1. 
 

I thought there might be interest in the 2020 angler-provided diet data, & how those trends  compare to past diet trends. I’m always interested in blathering about Whitefish & Cisco spawning research, any preyfish stuff, or food web topic, or the different survey methods we are hoping to test.

PM or reply if you have ideas,

bw

Is the King fishing in Sakakawea?

I didn’t know that but makes sense given the Oahe fishery. I use pictures of those giant smelt-filled Oahe Kings to refute the Great Lakes folks who swear Kings will ONLY eat Alewife. 

In case I don’t make the meeting or if you want to heckle the speaker, here are some potential questions you might ask Dr! Connerton:

Why is “percent wild” a potentially unclear or perhaps incomplete statistic to report/discuss?

Based on your current understanding, What are the 2 most influential factors (environmental or biological) that determine how many wild kings are produced in a year? (I really want to hear this answer) 

What is a mupped up flounder pounder? 

 
When can we get Caledonia back raising kings? 
 

if we stock more Coho is there a chance Shreckstoff will finally catch one?
 

Remember to give him crap (and Congrats!) about finishing his Phd.

6 weeks till shakedown! 
 

-bw

Sent a PM

Lucky & TallTails, you are completely right, there was some experimental Cisco stocking by Tunison  in I-bay and Sodus Bay. I think there is a report on that will be available soon. The bloater stocking is the focus though.
 

Tall tails, we are studying Cisco and Lake Whitefish but my teams are trying to understand how spawning habitat may limit those populations as opposed to their interactions with Alewife. Those 2 species have been in the lake forever, but the reintroduction you might be thinking of was with Bloater. Those are preyfish that live in the deeper LO habitats 100-300ft. Since the experimental reintroduction started, their numbers in the lake are very very low compared to Alewife and Smelt, most likely because they are getting eaten by all the trout and salmon (they are definitely a prey fish). we have a paper coming out about that and I can post it soon.
 

In Lake Michigan Bloater populations appear to coexist with Alewife. Bloater and alewife can eat the same food at some times of the year but Alewife can tolerate much warmer water and eat different plankton

LO history suggests that alewife do pretty well with or without Bloater. Alewife probably got into Lake O in the late 1860s when at the time Bloater were abundant. The few accounts i have read  suggest by 1880 or 1890s , Alewife were numerically dominant species in the lake. Bloater declined fast from 1950 to 1960 & the last one was caught in 1983 in our trawls until the experimental reintroduction started. 

Gambler, good call, I should look at how not normal these current  lake temps are based on history. Will report back on that one.

Yeah good point regarding flaring tempers, those letters can raise my bp sometimes too.

I haven’t paid too much attention recently to the DCL (deep chlorophyll layer) but have to assume it’s still like u say, an important zone of productivity.  As nutrients and subsequently algae continues to decline there is less biomass at every trophic level especially fish and the predator-prey interactions intensify . You might like this paper : 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0380133021001635

takehome, as I saw it was, that based on diatom record, LO is more or less back to a pelagic algal community that mimics pre-European colonization . 
 

VP- I hoped  I could coax an idea or 2 out of you. The length of summer idea makes total sense. while the lake is definitely getting warmer, the time period of stratification is also a lot more variable/longer, we wrote  a paper hypothesizing that phenomenon would also help lamprey in Superior (or any Lake) get bigger.over time. .

Goby are fascinating, your term prolific might even be an understatement. I agree Corms, YP. SMBs and others fish focus on them…but wouldn’t  that keep their densities low and work against overpopulation effects? Lord knows those fish eating feathered “beauties” don’t seem to be any less abundant these days. The upwelling is an idea we tossed around as well and makes sense, bunch of Goby forced into high density deep zones in late winter/spring, stress them out cause they ate all the mussels in the sizes they can crush, then temp changes push them over some tipping point. Speaking of Something Spectacular, One of the now retired scientists used to suggest crazy high sturgeon stocking to control Goby…I increasingly think that idea has legs, hell maybe we can someday even open a fishery for them! My sturgeon studying colleagues might faint if they read this but I lik restoration cause we can, fish for and eat those species again. 
 

Merry Christmas to you, the family and everyone. I might be taking you up on that offer if we don’t get some snow and cold weather. Managing one’s property with lots of late season food seems like a dumb idea when it’s this warm. 
 

-bw

It’s gonna be a long, painful winter for me if the only LOU discussion is who’s on what committee and who knew about what meeting. 
 

Heck I’ll even buy everyone on this thread a beer if we just agree to post about fishery mtgs (Niagara Show!), and get back to fun topics like:

-what kind of alewife yearclass did 2021 produce and why do you think that?

- why do we see bigger Goby die offs some years and how we might stop wasting that fish flesh?

- Yankee saw fleas (Byth) extra late In the fall, when that happened in the past Ale growth skyrocketed, it would be cool if the 2020YC got big in a hurry.

- or what causes annual  differences in Niagara River Smelt production?

- or KDs interesting point about Iron. Creek, (which makes sense to me). I get the potential estuarine predator hypothesis but what evidence supports that? science in the pacific north west provides strategies for minimizing that mortality source.

- anyone want to discuss LO dreissinid mussels dynamics? there have been some good papers come out recently on that topic, PM me if interested 

- or the idea that is constantly swirling through my head, doesn’t it seem useful for motivated anglers to pull a few seines each May to help figure out which tribs produce the most wild salmonids each year?

I’m ready for  Spring! all I’m seeing are tiny deer, Legacy send something bigger my way.

I thought I was going to have to say “Howard Tanner” three times to get Pierlioni to appear in the conversation, hope all is well in the West Cap!

Something Spectacular, 

bw, Schreckstoff

As noted above, The talks we’re prerecorded and are all available to watch here: https://www.dec.ny.gov/fs/programs/press/LakeOntarioFisheries/

I do not think the question/answer session was recorded. 

Ya

Ok cool, traps aren’t baited, just meant to catch eggs as they settle to the bottom. 
Cisco are in and seem ready to spawn any day now.

Yankee, as usual, our thinking aligns. You should bring up the idea of using wind to predict variability in catchrates (daily, weekly, annual timescales) with the bios that work on that.

The buoy data is awesome. I wish they could go in earlier and come out later every year.

GillT, your observation of bait on the bottom late in spring: Temperature & wind make the most sense as a driver but also wondering what effect there might have been given over 90% were young, age-1 Alewife.