salmonboy41

based on ice being more in the middle of the lake instead of being all pushed up against the boom, I don't think pulling it will make much difference as I'd expect the remaining ice to mostly melt before it reaches the river.

When I talked about 40lb kings I was trying to refer to the same fact Yankee was making which was that we seem to have kings maturing at ages 2 and 3 more often and it would be nice to know why and do something about as having kings with shorter life spans will naturally be smaller.

I have to disagree with point about the DEC. They are a government agency and since this is supposed to be a government for the people shouldn't there main function in this case be to do what the people want/what's in the best interest of the people? Because I thought that was the reason why Salmon where stocked in the Great lakes in the first place was to give people a fish that the majority of fishermen wanted to catch and eat.

What about the size of the fish? We saw many 40lb adults @ 3 and 4yrs old back in the 80s/90s. Now our fish mature at 2 and 3 yrs old, and a fraction of a fraction make it to 4. 

 

This is one of the big differences between todays DEC and the DEC of the 80's. Now all you hear is bait numbers are low that's why no 40lb's, but they never address the growing percentage of kings that are maturing younger and younger.

Sure maybe there isn't the bait there was in the 80's that's why they don't stock the numbers like they used to, so there was a balance that was kept. So if you look at it that way there still should be 40lb kings.  I'm not saying that the bait levels don't have an effect on the fish sizes but it seems like getting the fish to age more constantly at years 3 and 4 would give us the best chances at 40lb plus fish.

Now back in the day didn't the DEC at least experiment with ways to get the fish to mature at an older age? why not kept trying new ideas in an effort to create a better fishery instead of just being satisfied with the status quo?

To me it just seems like they just want to keep things the way they are and there is little interest improving the way things are done unless it has to do with Lake Trout.

I believe there are some suggestions for ducks basically just for the divers though, but I can't find where I read that.

I did the first time I setup my Hawk but then one day the breakaway cable decided to randomly snap as I was resetting the downrigger and it was bye bye cannon ball so now I just use a piece of the main downrigger cable.

Makes you wonder what is causing all of these hatchery issues. Cost cutting? Understaffed?

kind of makes you wonder. As there seems be a lot of issues over the past hand full of years.

I think what bothers me the most about it though is there doesn't seem to be a plan to make sure things don't go wrong in the future, nor is there a backup plan. At least from what I have seen and heard.

What ever it is, it is not good.  Can't we ever get a year where one species does not have an issue?  VHS, Stocking issues, Hatchery issues, ect.  We cant catch a break! 

and to add to that when I was add the hatchery this year they told me that a silt ball got into the eggs when they where incubating and killed a bunch of steelhead eggs leaving them short on steelhead for this upcoming years stocking.

Just go for it. You never know when it could be your day. When its 3 fish anyone can win charter captain or not. Plus if you look back at any standings you will see that there is always a different team winning even the best teams don't win with any reliable constancy(unless its the Sandy creek shootout and your name is trout and about).  It just all comes down to whether or not your team makes the right calls in regards to location depth and lure selection and you never know when you may get it right.  Better to give it a try learn something and maybe not win then not get in and have a great day be kicking yourself for not getting in.

Big news because of this blast hitting the Buffalo area...........semi-common occurance up on the Tug Hill............every winter.....plces like Montague, Lorraine, Barnes Corners..........plowed snowbanks 5/8 up to the telephone wires.

No national news coverage in regards to those folks getting buried.........again,every winter.

very true! I know Redfield averages around 300 inches year, awesome place to snowmobile.

Good reads

I like these two paragraphs the best

The choice to emphasize salmon rather than lake trout boiled down to each species’ appeal to anglers, according to Tanner. Coho had more angler appeal and greater potential to stimulate personal spending and the economy.

“We said we wanted coho, a fishery that was exciting enough that people would make the investment of time and money to participate,†Tanner said. “They can’t get that with lake trout. You have to have an exciting fishery that fits the food supply, which is why salmon was a perfect fit.â€

Don't feel bad the other morning when I went into the woods the poof ball hat that I wear on top of my baseball cap gets caught on a branch goes flying then while trying to find my hat in the dark the sun glasses that I had underneath the poof ball hat that are now resting on my baseball cap get caught on another tree branch and go fly in the dark.  So after eventually finding everything I go to the tree I want to climb and while putting my climber tree stand on the tree I pinch my index finger really bad on the tree stand. then after all that you would think karma would give me a deer but it didn't.  Needless to say the old saying of "anything that can go wrong will go wrong" is always correct.

WOOW every one of those pictures amazing/calendar worthy thanks for sharing.

No worries, I know we're all trying to get a handle and make heads or tails with what's happening and looking for answers along with any & all info we can get. I assisted 2 days with the collection both during the 2nd week last year and only 1 day this year on the last day (this past Friday). That is what a few of the OMNR staff told us when we asked how the collection was going this year with regards to numbers & size when compared to last year as we were telling them about the dismal season we had out in the lake, they were surprised at what we told them based on what they were seeing the past 2 weeks in the river collecting.

For what it's worth, there was also significantly less Coho in the river this year during collection when compared to last, they were everywhere last year it was great to see, whereas Friday we maybe came across a dozen.

 

 

Thanks as I'm thinking that if Canada is having normal runs and large fish then the issue of low returns and small fish is due to something that the NY DEC did, not a lake wide issue. This would also help to eliminate a lot of the other theory's as to why the fishing was so bad.

I assisted the OMNR with the chinook egg collection in the Credit River this past Friday (also last day of collection)  it was a great collection.  The average size of fish were up over last years collection with many around and over 30#  We did 71 families on Friday for something like just over 300K eggs if memory serves me correct.  From what I understood we collected an additional 500K to "eye" which will be handed over to NYDEC.  There were no shortage of salmon in the river.

 

Cheers,

G

I'm not trying to discredit your observation but do you have any data on the average size of fish and numbers because the picture your giving us of the north shore run is totally different then what we are seeing on the south shore. and if your findings could be proven it would be really interesting to find out why Canada is having a normal run and large fish when the US is having a poor run and less fish.

This is not about money.

At the end of the day its ALWAYS about money

Thanks guys.  Sounds like the typical DEC answers......    

Can't sum it up any better then that unfortunately!

The people I have concern for are the owners of the small bait and tackle shops that rely heavily on the business the "salmon Runs" bring their way. I'm sure the runs are responsible for generating a significant part of their incomes. Sure won't miss the slobs that "fish" this time of the year, though.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Lake Ontario United mobile app

I would say Olcott has got to be hurting big time this year from the poor lake fishing as there didn't seem to anywhere near the number of people in town as there has been in years past.

the guides I talked to and the ppl I know that went on charters this past weekend plus my experience this last weekend was 2 or 3 fish..  I agree about the majority are dying in the river I'd say we are on the downward side for the run in the Niagara and its just a matter of time before the trout take over the river which is my favorite time to fish the river.

The niagara is loaded with kings. Limits everyday.

I'm sorry but the charters are not getting limits everyday. The fishing in the river is TOUGH the number of salmon this year appears to be low. The charters are averaging 2 or 3 fish a trip.

Yeah that makes sense do to the fact that there fishery is natural and ours is stocked.

I just thought it would be cool to see what the numbers of fish where that come in, and that it would provide some useful data.

I was actually thinking it would be cheap to have a wire but I'm not sure what it would involve to have one and if there was a lot of managing to run it instead of having just be computerized(a totally automated process) I would agree that the cost would be to great. 

I was at the hatchery on 9/27/14 for the open house which was pretty cool there was an ok amount of fish in the hatchery.  One thing I noticed was that the Kings here all small to the point where it was hard to differentiate between them and the Coho's if they weren't close enough to get a look at there coloring. 

Also I learned that we are going to be short on Steelhead this year because a silt ball got into the system when the eggs where incubating.

I was watching a TV show on fishing in Alaska and I noticed that in Alaska they have wire counts where they keep track of how many fish enter a particular creek/river.

So I was wondering if there is any such activity going here on Lake O. As with this year appearing to be such a down year for salmon having wire counts on key rivers like the Niagara and Salmon river would give us valuable information as to how many salmon are actually returning instead of just guessing based on fishing success.  And in the case of this year it would allow us to document whether or not the numbers of mature salmon are truly low.  Which if they are, would make it so that the DEC or who ever not be able to say it was the weather or you where here on the wrong day.

I don't see any issue with keeping a 1 year old king every now and then for two reasons. One for a signal guy or a family of 2 a mature king is way to big for them to eat even one filet where as a 1 year old king is just about perfect. Second sometimes when you catch one there hooked to deep to revive.

Where I do see a problem is when ppl go and target them and fill up coolers with them on a daily biases. Now I know ALOT of people refuse to do this, but I know that some due as I seen it many times this year by one boat that would have the whole boats limit of barely and I mean barely legal kings that I believe is very unethical. Its like picking apples before they are ripe. 

As far as survival rates don't they figure about 45 thousand kings run up the SR, at least that's what I've read in New York fish and game not saying its accurate though. But if it is that would mean that on a year where they stock 300K  kings and have 5 million natural kings that would mean the survival rate is less then 1% even I would bet that the stocked fish survival is much higher then that.

KING ME

I would agree the fishing was more constant in 400 plus feet as the normal depths of 100 to 250 where basically died but I know out of Olcott we never crushed the kings out there and I fished the Canadian line at least 20 times only would do a few kings. and the only consistent king bite that I could find was out of the oak and even that was only 4 to 6 kings a day.  I just find it amazing that in the past couple of years it seemed like there was kings everywhere you went but this year they where few and far between.

specialtee

I think you are SPOT ON!!! no one knows. It would be amazing to put a tracking device on a salmon and see where it goes throughout its life.

So over the past weekend we fished out of Olcott in tight for staging Kings and to my suppress there was actually a good school of kings there and I had the best fishing of the whole season for mature kings over the three day weekend. Then after reading some of the reports on here from around the lake it seems a lot of the ports have good schools of salmon in front of them. So with that being said where were these Kings all summer? Where they just scattered around the lake due to the cold winter or scattered due to high levels of bait?