canadadude

I don't have any idea who you think I am, I am just a fisherman who has fished Lake Ontario since the mid 70's. Ron Penfound and Peter Sticklee got me into the Salmon fishery way back when it began. I fish out of St Catharines, On, and have nothing to do with Atlantic fishery, except I have seen some benefits of the program in the rehabilitation and public interest towards our rivers. I get it the returns are horrible. The program has had a huge impact on the general public's view of our cold water streams and how we need to rehab and protect these enviroments, all I'm saying is sometimes you have to look at other factors to see the benefits. Just dumping 1000's of fish into a ditch is not always the best way to deal with the enviroment, changing the opinion's of the public and restoring what we have destroyed is many times a better option.I'm just giving an opinion, I don't have an agenda, so Daryl don't read to much into it. Getting back to the original post, Capt Vince may have a good point perhaps Alewive #'s are on the increase, I have seen large #'s of mature Alewive dying in our area of the lake aswell. I have not seen this since the mid 70's, although the die off is know where near as huge as back then. I would be carefull of increasing stocking because of one event, and I also don't understand the increase in Lake Trout stocking on one hand and a decrease in Salmon on the other.

I've been following this thread and find it funny that certain person's think Ontario is getting out of the Pacific Salmon, non-native trout stocking for Lake Ontario, I read the fisheries proposal and it has not changed much of anything the OMNR has been doing for the last 30yrs. The OMNR has always promoted native sustainable fisheries for the last 30yrs,but still has Stocked Lake O and that will not change in the forseeable future or ever. Our resident OMNR critic, Mr Choronzey is fear mongering and spreading his opinion again as the facts of OMNR fishery plans. Ontario's involvement in the stocking of Pacific Salmons will be around for a long time. The Atlantic program is still in it's infancy really and has not been very successfull to this point with numbers of returns and such, but it is far from being a complete bust as some would like to think. This program has finally put much needed $$$$$ into the restoration of our few remaining cold water streams and rivers. The Credit for example has gone from an urban ditch in some areas to viable river, the Atlantics may not like yet, but record numbers of wild Steelhead seem to be happy with the changes being made. The program has also got the general public interested in restoring and protecting our urban watersheads, salmon hatchery's in schools our teaching our kids the importance of our water resources. In my opinion sometimes the you have to look deeper then just numbers to see benefits of a program, I guess we could just stuff our river's with a bunch of croaker rainbows, but I like catching wild Steel so much more.As for the state of our fishery I have very little to complain about, there are still plenty of Kings out here off St Catharines, a little late showing up this spring but 6-8 nice fish for 2 guys on a morning troll is still pretty good fishing. 20 fish days on the Credit with 15+ being wild Steel is ok for this guy. The Atlantic program is great amunition for the OMNR haters, but when push comes to shove we still enjoy a pretty good fishery, unfortuneatly Chronozey and the old boys will hate on the OMNR for the rest of there lives, it is what it is, I've been listening to it for 30yrs, same crap different day