schreckstoff

That last picture is awesome, that one gets my vote for next years reg book, the green shading is awesome.

Going in to Swega tomorrow will check ramp and post. No clue as to ramp availability later in season Hawkeye, but I’ll post conditions when I can. Gill you crack me up! FYI we had some recent success getting permission to do the trawl survey, it has been an uphill battle! My Canadian colleagues are battling too. Niagara Co samples are definitely key, but as we know from the past 4 years equally important is North Shore sampling, fingers crossed the grey & the green boat get the necessary permission to sample CA waters this year. Sorry we can’t accommodate ride alongs this year, stay tuned for next year. As always keep the prey fish observations coming, they are our best source of comparison and critique. Also, look for a report on all the salmonid diet samples you have collected (over many years) in this year’s annual report. Had coho cakes for dinner, man are those things tasty!

FYI

Kisutch- Welcome to LOU! I’ve Been following your posts (and corkdusts and others) on Lake Michigan sportsman forum for 8 years now and they have been incredibly helpful, thank you! You will find a lot of support here for you ideas on the role of temperature driving Alewife yearclass strength. 2016YC was above average in LO, but it was surrounded by lower than average classes and one or more years of above average wild king production. Your observations about 2020YC are quite helpful are those from LM, LH or both? Also The tournament-derby results, especially ones from the early parts of the fisheries are an underutilized information resource IMO. It’s great to know folks are collating them. I bet if a website and motivated, data-interested users pulled those results together, digitized them, and posted them it would be a great service to the fishery (cough cough hint JF). You might already use it, but if not be sure to check out the report the Cape Vincent DEC & partners put out annually. Hachimo , I’m with you on that early spring positive thinking!

Rick those screens are awesome, thanks for sharing. perfect example of the Alewife hiding out in the deep dark water and for good reason.

definitely a super cool fish, one of my favorites. Lake Whitefish are in Lake Ontario but numbers are low, current research is looking at spawning habitat as an issue. this link is to a report on the historic Lake Erie Cisco and Lake Whitefish fisheries, its is a cool read , especially the pics of the boats and landings https://pubs.usgs.gov/unnumbered/81373/report.pdf there is a very substantial sport fishery for them in a bunch of places like the Detroit River, Luddington, and the Green Bay ice fishery has been hot , YouTube has a bunch of videos showing angling. I’m always interested in talking Whitefish and the potential to bring them back in Ontario

Tree season! It starts the day after deer season ends.

Fairly confident the one it is a Spottail Shiner, definitely not a Cisco. The mouth (subterminal) isn’t right for an Emerald’s mouth (superior). Spottails are cool little preyfish I’ve always wanted to know more about them. I know they are more benthic than some other shiners. Likely not a coincidence their relative abundance in Lake Ontario declined quickly as Round Goby increased.

Great recovery, congrats. I don’t understand why wasn’t there a better blood trail based on that shot? Do you have any theories? NittanyF - nice job and thanks for sharing, cool story.

Congratulations to both of you, nice shot and love the thoroughness on the prep.

“Bait futures”, I like that term! good luck in the woods everyone , Gotta love sitting in a tree reading LOU

Top one looks like It might be a Spottail shiner, bottom ones look like a panfish maybe

Roger that in the torpedoes, I was thinking 12lbers. My riggers are old: converted Digi troll 2’s and Canon Marlins. I assume I will be ok with the 12s or should I go 14lb? some interesting bait discussion happening over on Michigan Forum : https://www.michigan-sportsman.com/forum/threads/the-bait-debate.700459/

good on you for the vest too, did you ever find a remote kill switch you liked / was reasonable?

I thought the current piece was crazy. Those times when I can't get my down temp right cause it 'seems' like the current is switching, is likely due to me moving into different parts of a wavy stream. (and partly because I haven't called Troutman yet to order some real rigger weights, stupid pancakes!) RE: Whiting vs Bloom, I was wondering about this too, and of course they often occur together so probably some of both. It it seems like a whiting, the timing is about right, conditions certainly have been right. Its interesting that it is primarily a Canadian whiting with some parts reaching the south shore now and then. Then again I don't think I've looked at enough of these images from this time of year to know how usual/unusual a N vs S shore difference is. I heard reports from the North shore that shallower staging fish are being caught frequently and it seems less so in the south. I'm still wondering how water clarity might influence staging behavior. The changes (declines) to the staging fishery on the south shore seem to be one of those comments that is consistent which always makes me think the physical lake environment is / has changed...but I'm way out over my toes on those ideas. I also noticed in most of the MODIS pics somehow the whiting/blooms to turn south right around Sandy Creek area....hmm...makes me wonder if Aquaman-Gambler can control the lake currents in addition to the lake trout. I don't check in on the MODIS enough but GillT keeps me honest. I know if there is something I need to see he'll tell me. I was looking at the other lakes MODIS images and I sure am glad to work in "the lower settling basin" as my upper lakes colleagues say. Michigan water looks black most of the time.

https://coastwatch.glerl.noaa.gov/modis/modis.php?region=o&page=1 some awesome currents evident

That pic could go on the cover of the annual DEC fishing booklet except for those excessively revealing shorts! Ha I crack me up.

Absolutely, all true. Like most non native species, in the beginning there can often be much doom and gloom, and predicting. Then when everything settles down and we get enough observations to look at the whole picture, the initial predictions might not necessarily be spot on. Byth spines in particular were found to “ball up” by the hundreds, and get stuck in Alewife stomachs so there was concern that Alewife could not keep eating them, and would starve...but no one told the Alewife and they kept eating them when they were abundant and Alew were getting bigger and bigger. They potentially extend the Alewife growing season...maybe by a month or more. We frequently find Byth spines in Alewife stomachs in April, presumably left over from fall/winter. They do have a lower energy density than Daphnia as GillT notes but they are also 50+ times heavier than the small Daphnia they eat, so even if their quality as food is not quite as good , Alewife do not work nearly as hard to eat more total food....a net gain.