Capt Vince Pierleoni

Thanks for sharing, Chris. Your Uncle Tom was "the man" when it came to these topics. He was a wealth of knowledge, and he loved to share it. His heart was in fisheries management, and you could tell he was proud of the Chinook program and the resurgence of the Lake Ontario fishery.

Perfect for Sportsmen and Women looking for lodging by the day/week/month when trib fishing the western region of Lake Ontario. Walking distance to boat ramp and piers in Olcott, minutes to Burt dam, and 30 minutes to the Niagara or the Oak. Private setting, off road parking for a boat trailer or a couple vehicles. Full kitchen, living room w/HD TV, 2 bedrooms, and gas heat. Please PM me if interested.

The fall date is erroneous. Labor day is late in 2015. expect a correction soon. As for the Spring date, this will make this event more convenient for traveling boats coming into the area for the WHI. Boats can fish the two events only a week apart.

You are welcome, Jer. King Davy, released a 27" Atlantic last week just for you! Only our 3rd of the season. A couple other points for the guests to consider: 1) There will be many small matures returning. This in no way is an indicator of any kind of bait shortage. Perhaps due to the excessive Alewife population, many Chinooks have matured early this year. I know in years past one of the evaluators of Chinook growth was size of returning adults. This will be lower on average this year due to all the early maturing Kings. The few 4 yr olds around are brutes. 2) I understand there is concern once again about getting enough eggs at the hatchery. Can the timing of the artificial water releases(white water races) be adjusted to prevent the loss of the valuable returning Chinooks? These huge releases bring Chinook in too early, and many perish. If this yearly concern of getting enough eggs isn't addressed, then other collection points will have to be established.

Excellent. Long overdue. Unfortunately, this is too late for any real corrections to be made as egg taking will be about to begin. Just a few questions that come to mind: 1) Has the NYDEC had any real discussions with the OMNR as to increasing the number of "Alewife controllers" (Chinook Salmon) in Lake Ontario? We are headed into what looks like another tough Winter, the Alewife population is out of control, another tough winter could produce dieoffs. Huge numbers of adult alewives crop off "young of the year" alewives--creating an imbalance an shorting valuable food sources for young fish. I feel this has already begun, due to the number of skippers hooked all season on large lures. The excessive adult alewife population also hurts the natural reproduction of Lake trout, Walleye, and Yellow Perch. An increase in Chinook could be addressed in several ways:1) increased stocking,2) holding more in holding pens(DEC's own data shows a 2:1 ratio of returning adults of penfish vs direct stocked, 3) Protecting spawning Chinook in rivers where they actually successfully spawn. Currently Chinook are blocked at beaverdam brook by a gate, and stream law enforcement is minimal everywhere but the SR. 2) Now that the DEC's own data has shown a 2:1 ratio of returning Chinook in favor of pen held fingerlings over direct stocked fingerlings, can we increase the number held in pens? This is especially important in the western basin where no natural reproduction is contributing to the returns. 3) What measures have been put into place to prevent egg "eye up" problems and water issues at Altmar hatchery? 4) Since the Caledonia hatchery was discontinued as a Chinook hatchery, returns to the Niagara river have dwindled considerably. What plans are being made to bring the returns back to the Niagara river?

This is a tough situation. It all depends on your agreement. Do you all own the boat and tackle? Did you kick in beforehand for all expenses? In most cases I have seen or heard of, it would be split by those present. If your arrangement was different than this, then of course it should include you. This has gone on for 40 plus yrs on Lake Ontario, and derby/tournament fishing can solidify friendships or tear them apart. In the early days several outcomes ended up in court. Today, I think there is even a statement in the derby rules suggesting all participants have their split/shares worked out in advance. Good luck working it out.

Kudos to you, Larry, for helping her out. I have seen some scenarios like this and it is definitely a tough time.

SOLD

Your original post is pretty close to dead on. 1 1/2 yr olds(skippers) can range from 1 1/2 to 3lbs this time of year. The 2 1/2 yr olds are usually around 7lbs ranging from 4 to 10 lbs. 3 1/2 yr olds can be all over in size as not all of them mature. The mature returning 3 1/2 yr olds are usually 16 to 25lbs. Any given year, regardless of the size of the Salmon crop available, 4 1/2 yr olds are a smaller population. The usually weigh 25 to 30lbs. It is my opinion that in recent yrs a large portion of the 4 1/2 yr olds are naturally reproduced fish. The slower start in the wild tends to see them mature in their 4th year. If you are just trying to "eyeball" the 4 1/2 yr olds, length is a better indicator of age. As adults they will be in the high 30's to low 40's in inches. The longest one we ever boated was 46 inches, but we have landed several in the low 40 inch range that weighed considerably more than that one. This year, perhaps due to the intense winter or as a correction by mother nature due to the shortage of 3 1/2 yr olds, there seems to be more early maturing fish. Seeing mature 12lbers certainly is not because of any kind of bait shortage, as there are mind boggling amounts of alewife out there this year.

New prices!

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Ok, this is my opinion based on "living" this fishery since 1976. I know there are astute, caring fisheries people who check out this forum. Hopefully this gets read. 1) NYSDEC and OMNR need to have the same concern for the Chinook as they do for Lake Trout and Atlantics. Yes, these are noble fish and the restoration effort is noble, but without an adequate Chinook population those efforts are just running on a treadmill. Why would I say this? Repeatedly in recent years there have been problems with Chinook eggs eyeing up, water supplies, and some years even having enough get to the raceways. Personally, and as a member of the Niagara fishery advisory board, I have offered help and/help raising money to correct these issues. The help was denied. We have heard that some years recently the "product"(fingerling Kings) was sub par due to experimenting with cheaper food, or again, water supply issues. We also heard that clipping the Kings was stressing them affecting survival/and or growth. The King program needs to get back to being the priority, and all the other stuff falls into place. 2) At least a 30 % increase in stocking numbers of fingerling Kings(Chinook). The cut that took place in the early 90's was completely unwarranted, and I believe was the beginning of the change in theme for this fishery. The uptick we saw in the late 90's through 2012 was primarily due to the SR baseflows and the efforts of the volunteers in Ontario province. Some biologists believe that there is a direct correlation between Lake trout numbers and Chinook fingerling survival. This has to due with predation. On the subject of predation, a 30 % increase would not even offset the amount of fingerlings we are losing to warmwater predators, which are in much higher numbers than what they even were in the early 90's. To top off this point, the educated angling pressure on Chinooks is at an all time high, and no doubt leaves less Chinooks out there to control alewives. 3) The NYDEC should intervene and protect the publics natural resources when it come to these water releases. I can tell you one of the reasons the eggs arent eyeing up is because these artificial surges of water suck mature Chinnys upriver(SR). Many perish due to the Summer temps, but others end up in the raceways roasting and then ultimately wasting the hatchery staffs time when they strip the "bad eggs". The mature Chinook is too valuable to the system, anglers, and the economy to be wasted due to a whitewater race, one that could be held earlier when it wouldnt impact as many Chinook. 4) Higher percentage of stocked Chinooks should be penned. Its just common sense that the pen fish are less prone to becoming a dogfishes dinner(Olcott) (pick your harbor and its predator) I once saw a rock bass caught in Olcott harbor on direct stock day. It coughed up 11 fingerling Chinook. This was in the early 90's, imagine how many are being eaten today. The DEC released from its clipping study that the penfish return to the fishery at a rate of 2:1. Yes, DOUBLE. Isn't that enough? Lets pen them all. A past DEC hatchery manager once said that stocking Chinook at smaller than 130/lb is basically stocking "fish food." With the water temp/supply problems in recent yrs, most of the direct stocked Chinooks have been this small. 5) Continue to educate anglers and DEC truck drivers as to temperature tolerences. A document was created by former DEC region 8 biologist Carl Widmer in the 90's that stated that stocking fingerling Chinook at a 10+/- difference was lethal due to shock. We can't afford to have complete stockings be "paper figures". This is another reason why all Chinook should be penned, the accountability is much greater. Direct stock tend to be "outta sight, outta mind." 6) Ultimate care should be given to 1 yr old "skipper" Kings when caught. There are still people out there who are trying to shake them off violently or rip them off by yanking. These are the survivors! They will be big Kings! They grow about 700% from their 1st to 2nd year. We catch many adult Salmon every year with healed over deformed jaws. When released with care-they make it! Of course, if one is gill hooked and bleeding profusely then it should be utilized and count towrds your creel. Anything other than that is unethical. In closing, I'm starting to hear and see alot of finger pointing amongst the angling community. It should never come down to that. The documentation is there, when the Chinnys are there, the lake fleet targets them almost exclusively. The DEC records show this clearly. This year the trout take will be way up. They are great fish but facts are the facts. Stream guys can say if the lake guys didnt harvest fish, we'd have more. Lake guys can say, if sections of viable streams were closed to fishing, we'd have lots more natural repro of Chinooks. If there was no possession of Brown trout, 18 mile creek wouldnt get stripped of its entire run of Brownies. It goes round and round. In the end, and as always, the Chinook Salmon is the answer. For those that continually bring up the risk of collapsing the bait, I say the biggest risk is going into another winter with the bait population so ridiculously high it could collapse due to UNDER predation. Instead of having enough food for a stable population of alewives, we may be looking at starving them out. If this was a Whitetail deer population, the DEC would be calling for an emergency hunt.

We use core extensively and by a mile the finest 10 color reel that allows a ton of backing is the Okuma Clarion 553. Super fast, great drag, huge capacity.

Yeah Ed, I'm a "total score" guy, always have been, always will be. People that are not even involved in this new cup chase discontinued that, deciding a Nascar style scoring system was better. As chairman of this new endeavor, I begged out of designing the scoring system, Nascar and spread sheets are not my bag. If it was up to me, everything would go back to what it was before all the damage was done, formats were toyed with, rules changed,and scoring systems changed(after all, whos afraid of a big, bad , box of Kings?). An impressive group designed this years scoring system and they elected to go with the new wave points system. Now remember, this is in rebuilding mode so the main theme was to encourage participation in as many events as possible. I'm sure everyone is aware we are fighting the economy, fishery,more and more events lakewide spreading discretionary dollars thin, and the biggest problem of all, team "blending." Where once teams fielded their own unit, today as many as 3 or 4 former teams combine as one. Ed, you are doing it the right way on your own with your own crews, and introducing these events to your charter customers is a smart play. This years scoring system was designed to ecourage teams to enter events that perhaps they wouldnt have, to have more scores to use. This was important to the generous sponsoring tournaments( WHI, Sodus Pro-Am, ATOMMIK invitational) who each put up 1K towards the prize pool. Certainly different scoring systems can be looked at for the future, and I for one would love to see ALL scores count, and total scoring tabulated for the overall but as one committee member said, then we would be back to 7 teams chasing the Lake wide cup. Mr Rebel, I'm disappointed with all the extremely important fishery topics discussed this year regarding stocking, baitfish, and fishery management, you remained silent and absent from the forum. You could have shared all the years of observations that being a lakefront resident and avid angler affords. Yet on this subject, one that hits in the pocket book you come out slinging rocks. Not cool. The scoring system was clearly spelled out, and for this year, it is what it is. Certainly you aren't saying the team that won the Lakewide cup shouldnt have, are you? This was put together by a committee of VOLUNTEERS who spent alot of time on it. Congrats again to Team Screamer for winning the current Lake wide Cup. We are in complete agreement Jer, that what went on with the original Lakewide cup was SHAMEFUL. Its heritage, rules, and scoring system should have NEVER been screwed with. Today we look to the future. I'm looking forward to you being a part of the solution not part of the problem. Good fishing.

To the best of my knowledge, the X-4 is water activated. It will not work properly unless the contacts are wet. They are very durable so wait until you can test it on the water before assuming its broken.

For all the well documented reasons I run non-ethanol in the boats as much as possible, but compare mileage in your trucks. The increased mpg more than makes up for the price difference. I think one of the big reasons the ethanol fraud is promoted is to slow down the loss of tax revenue on gasoline sales. As mpg gets better and better in todays vehicles, "dumbing down" the gas and retarding mileage helps stem this loss. Support the real gas movement.

Thats just the name of the original one day tournament held out of Wilson in May. It is my understanding that this will be open to all.

The danger we face is UNDER predation-- not enough pelagic predators. This allows the Alewife to explode and stress its food source. In the meantime, they demolish perch, walleye, and laker hatches. The King Salmon is always the answer, the solution, and never the problem.

Congrats to the Jakey baby team!

NEW PRICES! One has a small fin and is painted black $15, the other has a large fin and is coated w/ black vinyl, $20. Pickup only in the Lockport/Olcott area. I will be in Rochester and Port Dahlousie in the next few weeks as well.