Lucky13

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.

Thinking back, Jerry Barnhart didn't know a whole lot about the Lake Ontario fishery when he became Director of Fisheries, but you don't grow up without some background in fishing and hunting when you grow up in a family where on of the famous pools on the Beaverkill River is named after your father. And while I know that Lake Ontario is the Piscatorial Center of the Universe, New York is a big state, there are lots of other fisheries for DEC to deal with.

"especially with certain jobs going to political appointees with zero background in fishing and hunting." OK, Gil,. I'll give you Basil Segos, but below there in the COC, could you be more specific? Last I knew Pat Retzinger was in charge of fishing and hunting, and she came up through the ranks (she may have retired). And I'm pretty sure I was seeing Steve Lapan, still in a technical position, at some of the early meetings back in the 90's, so he didn't walk out of a NYC caucus, and I recall some reports and papers on Pike and Muskellunge in the ST Lawrence that he is credited on. Ditto Steve Hurst, who would be out fishing with us sometimes except he is always so busy that he has to get right back to Albany, but he does show his face at more meetings than anyone I remember. So who are these political appointments in the hunting and fishing areas? Please also remember that employment below the Management and Professional level is governed by Civil Service Law, so it is not as easy to slide people into positions as you might think, and they eventually have to score in the top three on a test on their area of proficiency, and even M+P's have to go through what is called an unassembled test, which is a review of qualifications, so lack of proper degrees and experience comes out in that wash.

It has no effect on discharge from the Niagara because it comes out of the Niagara into the tunnel and then returns to the Niagara after it is used for generation. It's not like it gets removed from the system, sent down the Alleghany or some other non GL river, it just gets used for power generation and then returned to the river.

The lake was subject to more frequent high water events and more frequent low water events, many at nearly the magnitude of the current "high input from the immediate watershed coupled with much higher inflow from the upper great lakes" situation, prior to construction of the St Lawrence Seaway. The Sheet pile and concrete wall barriers along Edgemere Drive were built prior to the Seaway construction. Plan 2014 was formulated to allow more natural high and low water events than under the previous scenarios. If it had been rolled out during the drought years of the 2000's in the UGL, everyone would have been P+Ming about not being able to get their boats out in the late summer. An unfortunate juxtaposition of events that many of us warned of at the public meetings prior to the 2014 implementation, (or at least pointed out the needs for funding for compensation, because many of the landowners could reasonably call the impacts of 2014 a "taking," and the plan incorporated the somewhat bogus logic that the lower water enjoyed since the Seaway was built had an economic benefit that accrued to property owners earlier, and so negated the necessity of compensation for current damages.)

Is this a manmade problem? Where are the controls on the inflow and outflow of Lake Michigan? As Dr. Wilcox has so eloquently stated in the past, when you build a house on a floodplain, you have to expect that sometimes the floodplain will be on the house. And if you choose to build on sand dunes, why should the general public be expected to pay for your loss if that oh so stable sand washes away?.

The Lake is a big place, there is about 1/2 mile on each side of the Genesee. It can get very crowded very quickly. On smaller tributaries the overcrowding can lead to even more posting.

GIl, DEC is not raising "millions of Kings" at SRH, recent peak number targeted was 1.8 million, and they have been shooting for 500,000 Chambers Creek steelhead (the domestics come from the Randolph Hatchery). When they are extremely successful, they have more so they go in also. DEC used to use a ballpark figure of 1 steelhead equals 10 kings in cost to raise, so even if you eliminated 1.8 million kings, you would only gain 180,000 steelhead going into the pond. I get accused of wanting the kings gone all the time, but if I really wanted the kings gone, I would be clamoring for them to raise king stocking to 3 million or so, crash the bait and start over. The worst thing for the steelheads getting to the rivers is a shortage of kings out in the lake, as Dave has stated. But the different indicators, which all appear to agree, says there is less food, so the pool of predators has to go down to reduce risk of a major collapse, and we all have to tighten out belts a little. This is why I, and Charter operators like Frank Sanza before he retired, have suggested for years that the orientation taken by the industry should be toward a trophy fishery rather than a "fill the larder" fishery, but throughout these years we've heard from many operators who don't care how big the fish are, as long as they can deliver the "full box." And as Dave has also stated, there is an awful lot of wailing going on about a fish that the Charter Operators on the Great Lakes Fishery Commission panel claim is only an incidental catch that they don't fish for. As to all this teeth gnashing about Trout Unlimited (I am not a member, although I was at one time), I checked the national Website, the NYS Council website, and the Seth Green (Rochester) Chapter website, and there is no mention of anything with these regulations anywhere on these sites. The local chapter has not even updated their site in about a year, and when I was a member, meetings usually drew maybe 20 people. Hardly a well organized conspiracy! And thanks, Bob, for spot burning the Genesee run, but with all this snow (we got quite a bit here in Rochester, and there is even more south) it will likely blow out soon, and while you may be hearing great things from Sandy, I'm hearing it is more like an ember heap of a run, hardly on fire, from a couple of guys who live on the creek. Also, considering the extremely limited access to Sandy considering its length, not a really good stream to be broadcasting all over the Interweb. Another hatchery does sound like a great idea for raising more fish, but the problem is not with the predators, it is a lack of bait to feed the predators. But if the bait bounces back, or Captain Vince is right and we see a massive alewife die off in late spring (I'm not counting winter kill), it would be good to identify a viable water source and affordable land that would accommodate a facility, and then if there are budgetary constraints, maybe it is time to start discussing a Lake Ontario stamp as a revenue source.

They did drop the discharge in April and May and if my memory serves me (fairly) well, that was when the Ottawa River freshet hit and Montreal was under 10 feet of additional water, and large numbers of residents had to be evacuated.

Did they have a "#44, but..."? Also sad to hear this news, I've been familiar with the store since starting to fish Naples in my teens, where else were you finding gold eagle claws, rubber eggs clusters, and wood grubs back before trout eggs became legal bait? I bought most of the materials for my Seth Green rig there, as well The best spoons ever created, to my Finger Lakes and Adirondack Lake fishing mind. RIP.

I know it is off your point, but just for the record: ( from https://ijc.org/en/loslrb/watershed/flows?_ga=2.196245420.1473435394.1575125285-902741098.1551272481) Recorded Flows (Past Seven Days): Date Lake Ontario Outflow Lake Erie Outflow Net Total Supply* Ottawa River Outflow Nov 28 8,860 m³/s (312,900 cfs 7,890 m³/s (278,600 cfs) TBD* 2,140 m³/s (75,600 cfs) Nov 27 8,880 m³/s (313,600 cfs) 7,930 m³/s (280,000 cfs) 8,220 m³/s (290,300 cfs) 1,670 m³/s (59,000 cfs) Nov 26 8,860 m³/s (312,900 cfs) 7,190 m³/s (253,900 cfs) 8,220 m³/s (290,300 cfs) 1,810 m³/s (63,900 cfs) Nov 25 8,880 m³/s (313,600 cfs) 7,200 m³/s (254,300 cfs) 8,220 m³/s (290,300 cfs) 1,780 m³/s (62,900 cfs) Nov 24 8,860 m³/s (312,900 cfs) 7,500 m³/s (264,900 cfs) 8,220 m³/s (290,300 cfs) 1,800 m³/s (63,600 cfs) Nov 23 8,870 m³/s (313,200 cfs) 7,240 m³/s (255,700 cfs) 8,220 m³/s (290,300 cfs) 1,580 m³/s (55,800 cfs) Nov 22 8,920 m³/s (315,000 cfs) 7,820 m³/s (276,200 cfs) 8,220 m³/s (290,300 cfs) 2,210 m³/s (78,000 cfs) * Net Total Supply (NTS) is determined weekly as the average total inflow Lake Ontario receives from Lake Erie, over-lake precipitation and basin runoff/streamflow, minus lake-evaporation The discharge has dropped recently, which will assist shipping (it is the velocity of the SLR that makes shipping difficult, not the level of the lake, velocity increases with increased discharge, the boats sometimes ground because they lose a lot of maneuverability at peak discharges). It has been maintained at record discharge levels since the recession of flooding in Montreal, until being dropped recently. But the water coming in from the upper Great Lakes is still at or exceeding record levels, so even with these way above average discharges, the lake level is still way above average. Oh, and we got quite a bit of precipitation since Halloween over LO and in the watershed. When you overfill a bathtub, there is a relief pipe that takes the excess, but if you continue to overfill at a rate that exceeds the capacity of that pipe, you get water all over the floor, the bathtub overflows. There is only so much discharge capacity, so if the input from upstream stays where it is, it is unlikely things will be pretty next spring, unless a solid icepack forms on the upper river early, and allows higher discharge under the ice without the flooding and scour danger that occur in the open channel. In 2017, there was a major drop in discharge ~90000 cfs) in late December, lasting about 20 days; in 2018, this was postponed to Mid January of 2019, and lasted 10 days, and this may have been due to lack of ice cover to allow the higher discharges that resumed in mid January of 2018, and then on January 20 of 2019. But unless you install a bigger outlet pipe, if you overload a bathtub, it eventually overflows. Jimski pointed out this problem a couple of years ago on this website. I contacted Dr. Wilcox at SUNY Brockport about time of travel through the Great Lakes to try to get a sense of when this would start impacting us, and he replied to me that he was unaware of any definitive data or studies on this. It would seem we have a ball park figure of about 1 year or so before the "spigotless source" starts messing up the plans.

For what it's worth, DEC received a few more than 20 comments in the first round of comments, according to a friend at the hatchery. The response was similar to the Salmon River Unit Management Plan response. Hardly the result of a well organized national conspiracy.

A Rochester Charter Captain very involved in the Pen Rearing told me that the pen used on Sandy for Steelhead had been loaned to them, and Bob Songin took it back last year, and left it idle on the banks of the Oak. Although I have not spent a lot of time out in the " big boats" and spend most of my current angling hours on the tribs, I participated in the Rochester Project for a year about 15 years ago,. There were a number of times that I drove with my daughter to Shumway to do our scheduled feeding, then got there to find someone else had already done the feeding. Once my daughter actually got to feed the fish, but most of the times she was very disappointed, eventually losing interest completely. I received no call about the project the next year. I have always been impressed by folks who P+M about a job, and then fail to share information on participation except with some hand picked clique.

A of captains are saying that this regulation will cause a lot of dead steelhead in the lake. Whether they are targeted or caught incidenlal to targeting another species is immaterial. If you are catching steelhead with a technique and you hit your " limit" you should stop using that technique if the fish can't be released. And as conditions stand, if you catch that fourth steelhead on a junkline, it is a " dead" according to these captains, so the lake should be already littered with dead steelhead. They are certainly not showing up in great numbers in any tribs I have been on or seen this fall.. And the "alternative fish" urban legend is not borne out in the boat surveys, 20% of harvest is July and August in the west end, and it is my contention that those fish were targeted specifically, not caught because nothing else was biting or available.

There were two boats south of Densmore, and one toward the deep hole at the North end, when I crossed the bay bridge yesterday about 11 AM. It is that time of year!

I've heard a lot of captains make statements to the effect that they do not target steelhead, but now they are complaining about a reduction in how many they can keep. If the bait pool is smaller, the predator pool will also shrink and with the large numbers of charter/commercial and recreational anglers and a smaller predator pool, something has to give. An emphasis on the trophy aspect of the fishery that has been espoused by many over the years might get customers who are interested in catching some fish with the chance at a wall hanger, rather than a box full of whatever ran into the junk lines and then could not be released ( Maybe the lake should be three and done regardless of what they are.) Or, stock 4 million kings , and for a limit, 10 fish or 20 lbs, whichever you get first!

My all around favorite for landlocks in the Adirondacks is a Silver 44, oddly I have never found one for sale up there, I've always had to go to Naples and buy them. Number 2 is a Mooselick wobbler. Be aware that there are Chinese knockoffs of Suttons out there now. It is likely bittersweet flattery that a manufacturer halfway around the world will copy your product, then undercut your prices, which they can do because they are not faced with the regulations on plating and plating wastes.