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Rainbow Trout Sampling


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NYSDEC has announced their schedule (weather dependent) for electroshocking of the annual rainbow spawning runs.

 

Naples Creek: March 19th at 9AM, starting at the route 245 bridge.

 

Cold Brook/Keuka Inlet: March 20, at 10AM, starting at the stream crossing on the Hammondsport-Pleasant Valley Road (county route 88).

 

DEC does not announce their schedule for Catherine Creek, due to public safety concerns.

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Thanks for the reminder Bigfoot. I haven't been to one of those in awhile but it is both fun and enlightening. There have been years when I've thought to myself "where are some those big mamas now" when I was trolling in the Spriing :lol:

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I never actually saw a truly big one electroshocked. Lot's of really nice fish between 6 to 9 pounds though they occasionally get bigger ones (when I'm not watching).

Biggest Finger Lakes rainbow I ever saw was in Hemlock Creek (near Owasco Inlet)during the winter of 1982.The creek practically ran through my back yard and I watched the run all winter long. However, there was one spawning bed that was (larger than a washtub in diameter) that I never saw a fish in during daylight. One moonlight night, I snuck up on the bed and saw a rainbow that I estimated at 18 to 20 POUNDS! I saw the fish several times after that, always in the dark, always in the same spot. We had a warm rain before the April 1st opener, and I never saw the fish again.....I took a couple 10LB plus rainbows in the years that I lived in that neighborhood, but I never managed to get one of the big ones.

By the early 1990's I was living about 3 miles from Catherine Creek. I those days I spent hours scouting the streams prior to the opener for one specific fish to target. One year I found a big female in Caitlin Mill Creek. I managed to hook that fish, but it ran my line through some willow roots andpulled the hook. I figured that fish to be about 14 pounds. It didn't hang around to give me a second chance, it left the skinny water and headed back towards Seneca Lake.

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I know they have had a few in the range of 10 -12 lbs in recent times but when I was in high school (in the Stone Age) I remember an 18 lb rainbow trout displayed in front of Harmans Sport Shop in Geneva in an ice chest that had been caught I believe at Naples Creek.  Most of the rainbow trout I've seen shocked were small to medium sized the times I have watched (mostly at Naples or Cold Brook). The streams are quite different now too with seemingly less structure and shrubery etc. One of the common things that has happened too is the total disregard by a lot of people who trample the redds during the April run. They either have no knowledge of what they are doing and the consequences or they just don't care. Add to that the "lifting" of fish by nearby locals at night and it doesn't leave much to the imagination as to why things have changed to the way they are today. Didn't mean to get on the soapbox but the situation is quite disturbing.

Edited by Sk8man
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Yes, large crowds walking in or near Rte. 14 with it's busy traffic. As you know, the road and the creek are right next to each other. This has caused traffic jams and the potential for accidents in the past.

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They didn't report the total number in the paper but they had a pic of a guy holding up a 5 pound rainbow....not real impressive ( I got one through the ice a couple weeks ago a little bigger :lol: ) Really hard to say what this years run is going amount to or if some of it has already occurred the male I caught was spawned out

Edited by Sk8man
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