Lucky13

When I lived there in the seventies, the Johnson City Wastewater Treatment Plant would blow out to the river with great regularity, and there would be advisories posted to not handle or especially eat fish from the "urban" side of the river downstream to Owego.  I would think DEC would have mandated upgrades in the intervening 40-50 years.  But you are downstream from large agricultural areas, so , along with the mud, you could also encounter manure runoff, and if the Susq was muddy, it had been raining somewhere upstream recently, in dry spells it still flows very clear (based on being down there last spring, and also using the Genesee as a reference for clarity).  I'm told access is more difficult than it used to be, but where is that NOT the case?  Too bad you picked a poor conditions day. 

10 hours ago, GAMBLER said:

People all around Lake Ontario have lost cottages, homes, hundreds of years worth of erosion in one year, loss of businesses, loss of revenue from loss of business ect.  If the water is low on Lake St Lawrence and people had trouble getting their boats out or not being able to icefish bays its not detrimental.  I lost 2 months of the fishing season due to the docks being under water at my marina.  I am thankful that it was not worse.  It was not a big deal because it is miniscule compared to the damage others have suffered.  Down here on Edgemere Drive by my work, houses were filled with 2' of water in 2017.  This year, the water was coming over the berm built by the town and flooding those same homes again.  The storm / Sanitary sewer system on Edgemere Drive was flooding and they were pumping sewage into the lake.  The Brockport Yacht Club on Sandy Creek spend thousands of dollars to have a break wall raised up and a pump system put in.  The water came over the new break wall and flooded out the building again.  Low water on Lake St Lawrence is not the end of the world.  As long as municipalities are not affected, no one is flooding,  keep it low until you no longer can. 

The Edgemere Drive area storm and sanitary sewer system has been overtaxed by illicit sump pump connections from individual basements for years, and sewage has been  discharged to the land surface, the lake and the ponds on many occasions regardless of Lake level, virtually any rainstorm of over 1" will cause problems down there.  Edgemere Drive is a sandbar, part of the floodplain that likely will be underwater in less than 100 years just from glacial isostatic rebound, and those properties should have never been developed.  Much of the lakefront in Parma and west was originally just tent platforms that were then gradually built up to houses.  Before retirement, I would routinely get called out to investigate odors, and we would find another straight pipe just discharging to the lake.  When you build a house or put a dock on the floodplain, once in a while the floodplain will be on the house or dock.

11 hours ago, iiwhistlerii said:

  F everybody but us. 

You have finally hit the nail on the head, this is the attitude of NYS Lake Ontario shoreline property owners, and especially boating fishermen and "professional" aquatic  Uber drivers, also known as charter captains!

I'm sure that the droppies eat their share of King Fry when they hatch out of the redds and start growing , if the droppies are still in the river.

I have never seen a 'bow digging in a salmon redd, but I watched one herd a large hen brown trout once, and take a shot at her abdomen every time she lined up the way the 'bow wanted, and then drop back to eat the eggs that got pushed out from the gut shot.

21 hours ago, Bustersit said:

Dear Lucky 13. You mentioned "That some lakefront property owners enjoyed flood control benefits from the narrowed range of lake stage that obtained from the opening in 1959-60 until recently is lagniappe, a 'little extra', but was not the primary intended purpose of the project.  

 

Having a famiky cottage in the SLR for over 80 years I understand the the history of the shipping interest etc. However family homes, cottages and business were on the river long before the seaway opened up. So I feel that the incredible profits made with hydro and shipping since 1959-1960 should be shared.

 

And "a little extra help" ? My friend we are most likely going to lose our cottage forever. I'm not blaming anyone. I just think some people need  to understand the devistation this has brought to both Canada and the US. 6000 people in Montreal displaced. It's heartbreaking. Marina's jobs homes etc. For me personally  It's hard to read your post.  Like this is something so black and white. We have heard so many different interpretations of why we are at this point it's maddening.

 

So let's cross our fingers for the best. Merry Christmas everyone. Can't wait to get the boat in the water. Tying leaders today 👍

 

 

I'm sorry for your losses, but I am just stating facts in here.  If the cottage has been threre for 80n years it was flooded before the seaway, and with a similar "perfect storm" of precip in the watershed and high inflow from the Upper Great Lakes, it will be flooded again.  As I have stated before, one former member of the Board of Control, Dr. Frank Scirimamano, was an outspoken critic of 2014, which is why he is a former member,  and has still stated that the conditions of the last three years were not a byproduct of the plan and would have occurred under the older regulation plans and would have occurred prior to the Seaway.  I agree with what you are saying , pointed it out at the public meetings prior to the original plans and the final version of 2014, even got agreement in  principal from NYSDEC, but IJC makes those decisions and it is their cost benefit analysis, not mine.   That is where people's energies need  be directed.  But please remember that a huge component of Ontario's electricity comes from the Power projects on the river, so they will be resisting shutting off all their lights.  And it is possible that there are not similar issues on the Ontario side of LO because they had more sensible land use policies and did not allow people to build in areas where they might get flooded.  Please also understand that as a non lakeshore resident, I am also feeling pain because the emperor of NYS has decreed that all residents will subsidize the property owners by paying for the damages to these lake side properties even though our public trust doctrine stops at tidewater and we do not enjoy the shoreline access afforded to residents of the upper GL.

LEs et al are correct, zigging and zagging always seems to up my strikes, and a lot of times it is on the turns when the lure accelerates.

There should be plenty of targets out there, they stocked 30 K LLS and 30 K rainbows last year, those are high numbers for either species in a "smaller" inland lake.  

Actually, if I had my druthers, either there would be a team of three ECO's at every pool cleaning out the yawkers, or the river could be closed during the Salmon run.  But I have seen NO DATA from anyone to indicate that the spawning population is in any way impacted by the current circus.    If too many fish enter a spawning tributary, later spawners just eradicate the redds of the earlier fish, in the same way that uneducated waders do in the Finger Lakes. 

If I wanted that year round steelhead and AS fishery, I would be out clamoring for an increase in king stocking to 1980 levels, no surer way to collapse the bait than to put way too many predators out there.  But the bounce back might not happen in what is left of my lifetime. 

From what I have been hearing from a friend up there who frequents LG for lakers, you may want to be looking for open water, as he is talking about fishable ice very soon, and a good deal of the Adirondacks is already locked up.  But if you are in Lake George, you have a better handle on that than I or he.

My experience is limited under the ice, but the Landlocks are generally at the surface.  Beyond that, the guys I know from the Fulton Chain look for areas that will concentrate bait, like steep drop-offs, humps and islands, and then they either parallel or set perpendicular with their tip ups, so I would guess that trolling areas like that would work as well.  I would not get wedded to the slow speed however, landlocks and rainbows can both be taken at very high speeds, so I would try faster unless slow is producing right off the bat.  And in the spring, they seem to be attracted to the wash, so running a short line 30 or so feet behind the boat could be productive if the longer lines don't produce.

Tandem streamers could also be hot, and you can't beat a Sutton 44 or a Mooselick wobbler for Landlocks. 

I've seen Rick at many meetings, and he has always had well thought out arguments that he presented in a  rational and polite manner, even if I disagreed on some things,  so I see nothing in what he, or Matt, are saying that I would consider "tongue in cheek."   And I doubt my friend who is carrying a 500K mortgage on a temporary housing property he bought in Pulaski for his wife and he to run would be any more enthralled over being told he can't rent rooms during 15% or so of the season that was his historical peak, anymore than a charter operator would like being told to leave the trolling gear home for two months in the summer.  Like Les, I try to use the emojis when I am cracking a "funny."

3 hours ago, Yankee Troller said:

I'm all for closing the Salmon River until November 1st. If Salmon are managed for the Lake I want the best of the best getting to that hatchery. For years all we've gotten were the scraps that made it through, and even then those fish were harassed and stressed beyond belief. Closing the Salmon River (the river that supplies 95% of our eggs and stocking numbers) just makes sense. Other than one small town nothing else will be affected. Canadian tribs are closed, and I don't see the town's on those tribs struggling. We'd need less of a DEC presence to write tickets that don't even get convicted, the big Trout wouldn't get ripped out prematurely by the Salmon crowd, the river would be cleaner, and there'd be more food in the system for those Trout. There's wins for both crowds by shutting that place down. I don't think we'd have a problem getting Canada's 100,000+ members of their Sportfishing/outdoors counsel to jump on board, and I don't know many, if any, Lake guys who'd be against it. Especially, after the stupid Steelhead regulation goes through.

 

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So the other half of the license buying public from the East Coast will be totally justified in asking for a closure of the fishery on the big lake from July 1st to, oh, maybe October 1st, both to insure that those salmon that have stopped actively pursuing bait to prepare for spawning can make it into the river, and to protect the steelhead and skippers that are being wantonly killed by C+R due to the choice of heavy junk lines necessary to reach the fish in those months, or least as far as the argument has gone recently?

A historical fact that seems to be being completely ignored in this discussion is that the seaway was built for shipping and hydropower generation.  So that shipping and hydropower get major consideration in recent operation is only the way that it should be as that was the justification for the expenditure for the project to begin with.  That some lakefront property owners enjoyed flood control benefits from the narrowed range of lake stage that obtained from the opening in 1959-60 until recently is lagniappe, a 'little extra', but was not the primary intended purpose of the project.  Certainly, when fiscal compensation for high water damages came up in discussion with an IJC commissioner, she indicated that the prior benefits received by the maintenance of lower levels had already compensated lake shore owners. 

On ‎12‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 10:04 AM, A-Lure-A said:

Good point Gambler with closing sections. For a time they closed Orwell and some of the other feeder tribs. Who wants to catch salmon once they are up that high, at that stage of their life, in such a small trib anyway. Let them do their thing at that point. 

Tributary groups like TU et al have supported and suggested closing Orwell and Trout during the Salmon and Steelhead runs for years, no one else has chimed in in support.  DEC has a fair amount of money invested in Public Access easements on those tribs.   And they are also popular with the locals as Brook Trout fisheries in the headwaters in the warmer months.  I would be extremely surprised to see a LO fish in the upper easement on Trout, which is really just a step across stream, and unless there has been a really big rain, there is no way for a LO fish to navigate the shallows in the headwaters.

If you had any data that indicated that spawning was being negatively impacted by the sections of the SR that are currently open, it would be helpful to your case.  But the netting that is done along the mainstem of the SR in the spring indicates massive hatches of YOY kings in all the reports I recall.  Recruitment is another story, but that is not impacted by the "jalormes" of September.  Better numbers on relative contribution of spawned YOY's will be forthcoming after the next clip study.  Please also remember that DEC has closed sections of the river in the past, and except for the C+R section of the fly zones, all of the river from Altmar upstream, is always closed, and, according to Steve LaPan, and conformed by Troy Creasy at the Pulaski bait meeting, that is where last fall's run (or what was left after the lakeside slaughter of spring summer 2019) ended up, crammed in like sardines.

I doubt he was running from Otisco Lake to the St Lawrence to fish in the same night.  Since he lives in Binghamton, it is a safe bet that he is referring to either the Susquehanna or the Chenango.  There is good musky fishing in the Susquehanna that he could get tired of, great smallmouth fishing, and lots of walleyes, although, as he is saying, not too many monsters.   There is no reason the muskies could not swim up the Chenango, either.  Finally, since he is speaking of shore fishing, walking along casting lures, I go with those two as there are numerous places to access and walk the shoreline on both, the SL, not so much that I am aware of. 

"Stepping back a bit from this thread I have to admit this is the closest thing I  have seen on here in the way of a truly intellectually based argument with supportive data for each side of it. Too bad our elected officials, the IJC and other decision makers haven't done their "homework" to this extent regardless of the "correct" interpretation"

Les, I attended nearly all the public meetings that were held in the Rochester Area prior to implementation of 2014.  The background data collection and analysis was handled by some of the top hydrologists/ hydraulic engineers in the world.  And there were two prior iterations of 2014 that were rejected, before this plan was developed.  Even Dr. Frank Sciramamano, who was on the Board of Control and was a vigorous and outspoken critic of 2014, has stated that the water levels of the last three years were NOT caused by 2014, and in fact were lower than would have occurred without the Dam and seaway project, and that under the prior plan, identical conditions would have obtained because of the limitations on discharge caused by the Ottawa River " freshet" and the impacts of discharge on the ponded areas downstream in the river.   The Lakeshore property owners predicted damages would occur, and no one disagreed at these public meetings, occasional higher water would obtain under the plan and the "wrong" wind event could cause problems.  Derek Glance, who was the IJC commissioner appointed by President Obama, told me when I spoke to her that the additional damages were mitigated by the additional protections lakeshore landowners had received from the earlier plan, which kept the levels in the narrower range, and I protested that that was NOT going to console a person standing in their living room in ankle deep water.  At one meeting where a lakefront owner asked about compensation for damages, Don Zelazny, Great Lakes Section chief for the NYSDEC Division of Water, agreed that some mechanism for compensation needed to be identified and put in place, but that didn't occur before the plan was adopted, and the IJC did not see that as their mandate.   It is a fact that if you build on a floodplain, occasionally the flood plain will be on what you built. 

IMO, this is not such a problem on the Canadian side because the localities in Canada have not allowed construction so close to the shore, but tax revenue is a heavy temptation for the mini governments of our home rule state, and the courts in NYS have apparently decided that the public trust doctrine only applies to tidally influenced waters, so the public lost access to the shoreline available to residents of the upper Great Lakes, and "Lakefront property" became a big inducement for local developers, town boards and school districts.

I am not at all surprised that shipping and hydropower come in first and second in the operation of the Seaway, that is what it was built for to begin with.  "The seaway opened in 1959 and cost Canadian $470 million, $336.2 million of which was paid by the Canadian government(Wikipedia)." I don't think that kind of  money was spent for shoreline protection in the 50's.

If you are using a float suit as a boat after November 1, do you have to wear a life jacket too?

It needs to be remembered that Bob O'Gorman, before he retired, made a presentation on Lake Trout at a SOL meeting where he showed data that indicated that because of predation,  (as Captain Perlioni points out) lake trout stocked at a density of less than (I recall, but it could have been higher)  50,000 per site, didn't survive to adulthood.   The more that were stocked at a site, over the critical number, the more that could escape the predators.   At that time, Bob indicated that while numbers stocked would remain at numbers they were introducing, the number of stocking sites would be reduced to try to get a significant survivor population.  As Vince also points out, sites that made the cut were in areas where they had found evidence of natural reproduction.  They might also come back on the argument about no LT stocking in MC, by saying that they shore stock browns and Randolph strain (domestic) rainbows in two Monroe County sites, and if they increased lakers, they would have to reduce those stockings.   Then it would be a choice of which bread and butter you like, because brown fishing in the spring in MC is about as good as it gets on the Lake.

Was there data on water temperatures throughout the year, indicating a suitable water supply  with a sufficient and stable volume?  My recollection is that NYSDEC vetted water sources pretty thoroughly prior to building the Altmar hatchery and the SR/Beaverdam Brook site had the best source, despite the problems they have had with it since. 

Until there are reliable indication that the bait is out of the woods and bouncing back, I doubt either NYS or Ontario will consider stocking more fish of any species, and if there were going to be increases, it would only be fair, and working within the FCO's to increase King numbers  before Trout got bumped up.

Gee, Guilty, it was based on experience, but I know a lot of people have reading comprehension problems. 

I don't think you qualify for welfare if you make $15.00 an hour.  My daughter is making less than that and receives no handouts.

18 hours ago, Gill-T said:

Lucky, I think the idea is with a five king limit, charter captains won't have to venture into steelhead water.  Most king fishing takes place inside of 200', and their ain't many steelhead in that zone.  Saves on the gas bill for the charter operator also.  I am not saying there should not be some form of short- term tweaking of the regulations to help steelhead recover, but try to make it a win-win.  The cuts have been in one direction for a couple of decades.  

SO all the captains who maintain that the reason they can't release them because they are too stressed from fighting the lead all the way up and due to rapidly changing thermal regimes are making all that up, and they are actually targeting them instead of catching them incidentally to targeting Kings on all those Junk rigs?  Gee, all you would have to do is take the cheater off once the two were in the boat, or move, and then no mortality with release.  Really, you guys should get your stories straight, your feet will be full of holes pretty soon!  

19 hours ago, Traveling Circus said:

Yaaaaa......cuz a long cold winter is so good for Alewives.........

Everyone has different priorities.  A long cold winter will definitely facilitate draining the pond for the shoreline property owners.  But if it means a couple more sammins in yer box, let's let them keep flooded!  Like the "why did they drop it in May-June", oh, well, Montreal was under 10 feet of water, but lets make it 14 to dry out the north coast!

I'm not clear on why they have been lowering it lately though, unless to make it possible for the last of the ships to get through before it closes for the winter.

3 hours ago, Gator said:

 

Hey Tom,

 

Good thought, but only true to a limited extent. Hydrostatic pressure diffuses rather quickly in an open system like the Great Lakes. Think about a flash flood. There's a lag between an influx of water upstream and the flooding downstream. Or alternatively, the Genesee River gauges, which reflect the non-linearity of the system. After a storm, guys are calculating how much time they have before the river blows out. You can watch it happen in real time. All great points to think about though.

Another illustration is the Brookfield announcements of flow on the Salmon River.  They open the dam at x time, the outflow reaches Altmar at x+1 hours, Pineville at x+2 hours, Pulaski at x+3 hours, and the estuary at x+4 hours.  The pressures in the river change before the level comes up, we could always tell it was going to go up in the winter because the fish would get active and bite before the rise, but the levels do not rise in  reaction to that pressure until the water actually arrives.  Why time of travel studies are conducted, to determine how long it will take the additional water to get to various points in a system.

Also, in a closed system, the velocity will increase to increase the discharge.  This is why the St Lawrence Board of Control can discharge at a much higher rate when there is ice cover on the river, the ice closes the system so the velocities, and the associated discharge, can be increased without the accompanying rise in stage that would flood the River and the " ponds" downstream in an open system.  Pray for early and late ice this winter!

Government budgets are funny things.  I worked for a music store I Binghamton after college, and repaired a lot of instruments for the Vestal School system.  They would bring me a guitar that had been reduced virtually to tooth picks from abuse, playing El Kabong on the bus, whatever, and ask that I make it playable again.  I would point out that a new instrument would be far less expensive, and would be easier for a student to play, and the response was always, "there is no money in the line for new equipment, but plenty of money in the repair line, so just fix that one."  Labor is always the biggest cost in a budget, the hardest to get increased, but the least likely to be cut as well due to public perceptions and dislike for layoffs.  40 years is a long time for a lot of projects, most companies and governments work on a 25 year depreciation scale, so the folks in Altmar have done a great job of keeping that facility going.  And while the operating budget may be near deficit, the capital budget may have included this upgrade for some time, and it will get paid for over some time.   I know when it came time to finish the upgrades to the display area a few years ago, hatchery staff did the painting rather than go though the long drawn out process of contracting a painting company, got it done quickly, and likely for less money than would have been involved in a government contract.

My bad, I realized that when I reread your post.  And it is my impression that West Virginia may produce the lowest life poachers in the Continental United States.  Look at what they did to Sandy Creek a few years back.   I almost never go fly fishing in the flyfishing zones in Altmar because so many of the "anglers" in there have too much shot, too long leaders, and are lining and lifting so many of their fish.  It is fun to watch when Encon comes out of Beaverdam Brook in their drift boat and checks rigs, but I haven't heard of that happening in some time. 

6 minutes ago, Gill-T said:

Dave, you are doing a lot of deflection to the DEC. The DEC would not be proposing these changes unless someone or group approached them. A lot of the charter captain angst towards the trib leadership group comes from the thought that one group of fishermen can effect another groups’ bottom line. Now the LOC has taken steelhead out as a fall division which means someone had to get in Dave Chilson’s ear. All groups would agree catching more and bigger fish is a good thing but it would be nice to see the evidence to back the changes. Why not make the changes temporary to study the effects of the new regulations?  To preserve baitfish numbers and keep captains from having to target steelhead, why not increase the king creel limit back to 5 fish until bait rebounds? This needs further discussion in a bigger forum with a larger audience. 

I have a friend who depends on the river fishery to pay the mortgage on the motel he runs in Pulaski.  Charter captains who continue to "catch and release" dead steelhead, or creel them, when they cannot find salmon, or are the repeated " incidental catch" of using deep junk lines are definitely affecting his bottom line.  Last year, with a fair steelhead run in the Salmon River, he had a full house for Thanksgiving weekend; this year, one angler in one room.

Who is this " Trib Leadership Group".  A lot of us, Dave, Ron Bersteine, Fred Kuepper from DSR, myself, and a few others, met well over 10 years ago to try to put together a tributary group like the Charter captains organizations, under the facilitation of Dave MacNeill from Sea Grant, and we could never reach a consensus on exactly what we wanted, so the effort was abandoned.  Since then, the organization out of Albany was formed, but not everyone on the tribs is a member of that bunch.   

Maybe Dave Chilson had a thought on his own.  Maybe he sees that it is a potential black eye for his derby if people decide that it is not cool to chase around the lake all day c+ring fish that can't recover in an attempt to get that big one for the derby.

Changes to regulations ARE temporary, all it takes to change regulation is the same process we are now in.  Changing the law is different, that has to happen in the legislature.  But of course, the Charter Organizations have a lot of experience of running to their legislators.

I keep hearing from the west end captains at the GLFC panel meetings that they don't target steelhead, they are an incidental catch while they are deep trolling for salmon.  So if the Salmon limit goes to five, they will "incidentally" kill more steelhead while going for that 20th salmon for a party of four, unless someone either starts employing some of the release techniques that have been mandated on the west coast for rockfish and some other deepwater denizens, or the captains abandon the heavy junk lines that require them to prolong the fight up through the thermocline and make successful release less likely.