why ?

OK- in the spirit of spirited conversation that may or may not lead to true or even untrue long held beliefs lets pontificate as to WHY the natural spawn fishes are becoming so very commonplace in the SR--and the ultimate results thereof--
  My take-
  The base flows have given fishes an opportunity to reproduce in enough numbers over past years to now represent a distinct percentage of the totals.
    I understand 'naturals' are now half or more of the gross Coho and King returning populations. Since the returns are not annual but take a few years the apparent success has gone on relatively unheralded  for some time. This year changes that.
   This has led to fishes entering the river over a longer period and spawning over a longer time leading to what we may now enjoy as an extended run as opposed to the past years when the last of Sept and earliest of Oct represented the bulk of 'the run'.
   It would seem this extended run offers the fishes greater opportunity to reproduce successfully and continue to increase their numbers-future August runs?? they have clearly adapted to some degree to slightly warmer  waters and low flows and are even spawning all the way down through DSR in good numbers instead of mostly  trying to 'get to the top'.
  Next of course will be the consequences-
  IE-- can the Lake and fishery itself sustain this great success over time ?? We are already observing some glinches in Lake Michigan due to excessive game fish populations and one must wonder if it is related in any way or simply representative of what may occur here.
  Opinions and observations welcome--

Kings seem to be a  dominant  and resilient fish, kind of the T-Rex's of salmonids, and from what I've seen in some rivers out west, they'll thrive. They can drop preciptously though. I remember fishing the  upper Sacramento River, not for Kings, but for the large wild bows that would pile up behind the redds to balloon up on the eggs. Some of the braids I crossed to get out to the main channel would have huge piles of carcasses.  Ca. closed the King season for a number of years now, as the pop. dropped off the table. They blame it on low water in the delta and the predation of striped bass on the parr and smolts as they leave the river. I don't know if the lakers and walleyes can increase  their pop. to put a hurting on the Kings, but I suppose it's possible. The low water we have at present.  I hope that does not last through the winter. I'll give major thanks to the DEC for trying to keep on top of things and make it the best fishery possible. It's about as loaded a fishery as you can find. Enormous bio-mass.  Cohookhead brought up[ some good points, hopefully answers will be found and programs and laws implemented to keep things going.

Want to explain that? 

Not really.. Because we both know Jack..
The DEC knows the fishery better then me..
Involving like minds is an ever enfolding experiment.. Pretty cool if I might say..
 A Funny:
My daily French Safety topic was stress Relief..
 It said Fishing is a good relief..  Sadly I did not get the day off no matter how I pleaded FOUL !!
 
Hope today was a good day to all !!
 

Trev, I shouldn't say this, but I use to toss the little bastards in the woods. They stocked parr on the West River in Vermont, about 20 miles up from the Conn. River at Brattleboro, Vt. I lived in a town   on the West. It had a thriving population of brookies and was destroyed by the stocking . The salmon outcompeted them, as they are extremely aggressive. Us ****head locals tossed the little silver bastards in the woods, despite the threat of the 500 dollar fine. We liked the brookies, just fine, and didn't want to see the river turned into salmon lodges and beats to fish for the 10 fish that might run in a good year if they got it established. As I remember, only  2 fish were ever  seen in the fish ladder at the Vernon Dam below Brat. and they were probably grilse.  They did run out of the West; at least I can think they fed a striper I caught in the salt .  Stripers would probably do well in the Great Lakes, as they do in big impoundments down south and in Ca.  I'd  much rather keep it to the salmonids, as much as I like stripers.
HT, does gigging frogs count as fishing?  Hang in there, bro.  You'll forget the froggies when you and Matt are out on the 'sable.
 
Charlie
 
 
 

Rt & Charlie:
you obviously took thought and consideration towards this topic.. 
A good one.. Outta context i was scoobie do in' .. I owe you guys a Response..
 
All good rational  discussions.. DB, RT, Charlie, Coho, & BB..
Honestly I don't know, or even speculate other then what has been said..
It's only been recent (-10 years) since hardcore data has been taken for study .. I'm outta the loop in last 4 and most important..
One thing that has been said over and over, It's been Pretty DARN good as a fishery .. Lake and river .. Remember the 80's.. ??
I'll let the NYDEC management team continue their job.., < EDIT : (stupid statement)  
Limit criticism to them and hope to enjoy what we have as sportsman through my lifetime so it can continue to others..
 
Peace & Tuna
Best wishes to Jack...

Gonna have to agree and disagree with tuna...

As he stated, this has always been a diverse abundant fishery for quite some time and its not even beeen ten years since they really started investing research in to the wild stocks... heck, since i can remember i always saw fish spawning down in dsr... it was always later though, while in the past few years its been early and more abundant...and natural spawners were always abundant in the upper river since I could remember

Another thing youve got these days is the internet. Veiws, opinions and sightings use to be word of mouth thing on the river In the Shops and at the motels. Now you've got topics, discussions and pictures that are getting viewed discussed ,and analyzedthe by many... positive natural reproduction has been somewhat of a growing topic for the past few years. with that being said more anglers are keeping a closer eye on the fins when they catch a fish....

Lastly, I disagree to just disregard the topic... yes, the DEC does know better and does their job best, but every angler can have their own angle and view on how they see things as they see it... no single person or agency can single out every aspect of what goes on in this river.heck, ive seen natural reproduction in the lower river since ive been fishing it in 90, but yet the DEC still doesnt have it as a highlighted reproduction area... Every angler is blessed every now and then with a little ray of light; and we are all fortunate enough sometimes to seethe things that most others don't... why not share and discuss??? Great topic Trevor Tight lines all

One point to consider about the wilds is survival rate compared to where they are spawned in the river. Typically, survival rates are higher farther up a watershed as water remains cooler and predators are less. I wonder if the fish are imprinted to spawn in a certain section of river, or are they using  what gravel is available as they find it?  Seems like imprinting on the lower river is taking place, I'll have to research that one.   

Tuna, i definitely think it is more glorified than ever, but it is definitely not something that happened over night... last year was very similar to this one but in a smaller degree, as all fish i caught in the lower river the first three weeks in the september were wild... and by the first week of october there were tons of spawning fish on gravel pots in the lower end... one thing that amazes me is how they are presuming that wild stocks may be more abundant than hatchery stocks.... where else does this happen???? NOWHERE!!!!! usually hatchery stocks thwart wild stocks anywhere else as far as my knowledge can remeber. I believe many western rivers abolished hatchery stocks so their wild stocks could prevail and not be over run...cool **** to say the least...

Hatchery trout???? Im not gonna say what percent i think, but i would guess its more than 10%a since we have close to 6 months of spawning trout in the river... cant wait to hear what the DEC has to conclude on them...

RT, ive heard that many north shore canadian tribs that stopped stocking years back are getting runs of chinook presently... dont know if its the truth though as i have not seen it first hand

       Would readily agree that Kings have been spawning in the Sr naturally since they were introduced. Some are just ready before the Hatchery takes them and they do their thing and others seem to have just found nice gravel areas and dropped.
       Suddenly however- likely cause of the fin clipping- we are more aware of 'naturals' and at about the same time the 'naturals' are really taking off in numbers and  spreading their timetable.
      I see it  like this- In  30 years on the Sr I have  only seen about 10 cycles of Kings-this cause it takes each group bout 3 years in the Lake to grow and return.
  When ya think about it that is really a very short timetable for Naturals to establish in enough numbers to acclimate to a longer 'run time' and then to get up enough numbers to initiate the great numbers we are now seeing- if it continues will be another story.
     The standard flow one would think really helped a lot and only stared about half way through my personal experience thus they have only helped out half of the runs I have personally observed. The fish have only had a bout 3 years of this flow for each age group to have evolved in.
    This tells me that Kings and Hos were indeed a wise choice as they are most certainly VERY adaptable when favorable conditions are in place.
    If I have it right the FLOOD fish are due next year--cant wait as they went pretty much unmolested. Let me know if my memory banks are muddy- cause there is a nagging thought that THIS may be the flood return. I expect that to be huge.
  What a GREAT place---

Bear- have mentioned this before--
 Brought My Uncle to the Sr a number of times- he had fished Alaska often and said this is at least just as good as there. He caught more fish here.
 One interesting thing he pointed out is that most of those' out of the way' fly in guided rivers actually have a small hatchery put in place on each river or good stream by the Guide services so as to ensure a decent run for the clients. No different than here.
  He also said the methods are just the same -slash slash. Take a look at some putor videos of Alaska where the most guys get to fish- Just like here too. NOT knocking it- the scenery and country appear great- but the fishin is apparently similar. 
   Cept for BEAR tryin to fish along side ya--lol

retired i believe a difference is that most of those hatcheries use wild fish and do not keep the offspring to be the broodstock next year.
while hatchery fish they are never more than one year class away from wild.

That's just plain  ol' good thinking, right there, 2b. How do you extract common sense from empirical data?  I hope the DEC biologists can answer that.
 
Charlie

Why oh why ?
Why did I go to the JOB instead of fishing with Jack thursday ?
Why did nothing on the JOB get done again today when I could have been fishing ?
Why did Charlie respond to the same topic's , in the same order as I chose ?
 
So here I'll try to answer all those questions :
1. someone said it somewhere, If we build it they will come..
2. It was built and the players introduced
3. The spectators flocked in droves, the headlamps could be seen for miles.
4. The games begun with a huge BANG as people stood and cheered.
5. As long as the players continue to show up so will the happy fans..
 
The End:
 
Now for the discussion:
fish have dug redds and dropped eggs since the beginning.. Once the hand of man alters those conditions it balances in their(our) fate..
The Lake Ontario &  tribs has a economic recreation fishing factory since the re introduction.. With out a balance it would be a biological disaster or warm water fishery..
Over the years since modern inception it's been at it peaks & valleys.. To me it's peaking again in anglers and fish, heck all we need now are lakers in the river, maybe..
We have all seen salmon digging REDDS all over the river, even the estuary .. What becomes of those smolt was largely unknown for crepes , half a century ??  Studies were not done, control what ? STOCK salmon and THEY WILL COME .... As they did..
Who knows what was wild (survived) through natural spawning..
Do we know now ??
 
The fin clip deal..
hummmm.. It's a positive start towards control.. Data is being collected at the hatchery of course, on stream spring netting, cleaning stations ,angler surveys (love the gal in the green S10 suv) and the new fin clip trailer (have not seen myself)...
What is necessary for Wild VS Hatchery balance is data control..
 
These fish seen with the cut or un-cut.. 2,3,4 year old class ?
Last year the dec that took my sample said most fish were 3 year class..
There has been a lot of control issues, like getting all agency on the same page.. Some clip, some don't and some are far right..
They admit and understand it's all about control of the data with a +/- 5% margin..
Was it 2,3,4 years ago ?? NYSDEC says not..
I think it is happening better now..
The fishery is as good , if not BETTER then it was when I first went in 1980.. IMO .. The fishers somewhat the same..
While I can sit here and ask for more, NYS has done a fine job towards my $98.00 worth of license fees to manage all outdoors recreation..
 
Why did I start ???
 

which they have done in 95>8  ?
I believe the numbers i threw at you were way skewed (camo busch)..
My clearer number would be 3 mill to 1.5 as you said.. Cut in half..
After that reduction and without the min flow agreement, with then Nimo, it was the valley times from my experience..
The swing is happening or peaking now on SS&T..
 
I think minds are thinking alike.. Increase habitat which will produce natural survival and it will cost less to manage a fishery..
Charlie hit the Nail on The Head !!
I personally think its working and being looked at seriously , as I'm hearing others say the same.. The balance lies in the hands of professionals of their trade..
we only can form an opinion or digest their data.. 
 
Awesome fish talk !!