It seems to me, I am seeing off shore charters showing off a lot of brown trout catches....And big ones to boot!....Oak Orchard is where I go for big browns but maybe we'll see more on the SR?

The pictures I've seen seem to indicate there's not much C&R where the brown's are concerned....I personally don't want to eat Browns but to each his own.

Just heard yesterday some charters are going out to 500' targeting next years salmon for the clients that want salmon... Will be shocked if the port doesn't have fish in it after 2 days of east wind and followed by the heavy west wind we are having now as tuna said... Colder temps and higher flows coupled with the wind events should have fish in the port by tonight...

bigbear2012
Won't be long now....my crystal ball shows a nice run of cohos on September 3rd. 

BB Ibet you may be right on that.

Thanks for the info dime.  I honestly wasn't sure when the flood happened i.e. during spawn or around the time the state places the fingerlings (and truthfully I'm not sure when that happens either....).  Last question, has the state started dialing back there egg collection to account for natural reproduction and if not is there a plan to account for such numbers.  If I remember correctly aren't the numbers of predators i.e. salmonoid species being one decimating the bait fish populations.  Why do I want to say bunker or rather alewives was one of those...  I could be completely off my rocker by the way. 

From what I read it is exactly what Dime and HT say. The flood was around the 25th of September IIRC as I was on A cruise when it happened. I did not catch a clipped fish last year and most of what I saw that were dead were wild.  I also seem to remember some disease cutting stocking to almost nill , but this was way back 80's or early 90's and returns we horrible.

fischnmachine
Thanks for the info dime.  I honestly wasn't sure when the flood happened i.e. during spawn or around the time the state places the fingerlings (and truthfully I'm not sure when that happens either....).  Last question, has the state started dialing back there egg collection to account for natural reproduction and if not is there a plan to account for such numbers.  If I remember correctly aren't the numbers of predators i.e. salmonoid species being one decimating the bait fish populations.  Why do I want to say bunker or rather alewives was one of those...  I could be completely off my rocker by the way. 

I visited the hatchery on our down time.. I really should have at least taken a pic of the  2013 -14 egg take..
If my terrible memory is correct, the chinook take was full capacity.. it was either 5 mill or 2.5 mill , I cant recall other then remember under the numbers it said FULL .
The steelhead take was also quite impressive, again.. somewhere in the 2-4 mill range..
They also list the number of females for each species and the average eggs per..
Man I wish I took that down..... Ah, next time..
 
P.S.
as some may recall they used to stock 5mill chinooks.. They cut the number back to 2.5-3 mill in the early 90's ? to account for natural reproduction and over abundance VS available food source in the lake. I have not heard of any further cuts since then except for the shortfall in egg harvest in 2011 due to drought (remember they closed the LFZ, Jack )

http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/fish_marine_pdf/lou2013hilights.pdf
 
Found something, interestingly I looked at the 2012 as well.  Seems they have problems with the Brown eggs and disease, as well as turning out viable coho eggs. 
 
http://blog.syracuse.com/outdoors/2010/10/dec_hatchery_finishing_up_seas.html

HT IIRC the problem with the natives  was the alwives and smelt stored something that blocked thiamine??? that made the fry die.  This is why the massive stockings failed in the early 80's. Here is a big kicker though from what I have read the round goby is very high on thiamine????? and when their paths cross in the fall and spring in the shallower water they are eating them in abundance and this is leading to more natural repo. I may have also read that they have also done some bioengineering to make the less reliant on thiamine and they are also looking into stocking Cisco and sculpon that are the native forage. 
 

They made egg quota in 2011, but had to go to the Black River to do it.  They also had problems last year because the low water made the big egg filled hens visible in the gauntlet below 81, but they have the alternate sights and got most of what they needed.   There were problems with Cohos, there will be lean times coming.   I spoke with a captain yesterday, said before the blow they were getting kings off Rochester, Point breeze was dead, and his friends from the other side of the pond were slaying salmon .  Hotline says fish are scattered. Remember, things are about 2 weeks behind normal, in the daks what blueberries we found were mainly still small and  white, and there were still a lot of raspberries, usually gone by end of July. Orchids that are normally in flower when I am up there were just pushing up when I got there, and only flowered the last couple of days.  So it may take a little longer for the "run" to organize and stage.   There have also been some heavy inversions lately, water was 49° on Tuesday at the beach.  But 2 year old numbers and health were good last year, so there should be plenty of kings around, unless some mystery disease hit out there.  Just a matter of time.
 
L13

Yes as L13 says it's been a strange year weather wise,now we have Sept. in August.I just hope we don't have August in Sept.
Whatever it is I will be there in my secret spot come end of Sept. and first of Oct.I'm reasonably sure there will be some fish to play with.Will my fishing buddies join me?

Read some stuff bout the thermocline being somewhat different this year due to wind shifts and weather patterns.
Some think that has made the mature salmon hang out chasing food in different areas than normal and difficult to locate - hope so,  because the lake reports about adult kings are about nil.
 Whatever it is  the should show after this weather- usually this would produce a beginning few pods at the least- we will see this year.
We may have been spoiled lately and about to get a reality dose.
Already a sure thing with Hos- hope Kings don't follow.
Aint that the way things go - couple of years with banner numbers and wondering bout affects of low hot waters in da river and now with cool higher waters we wonder where the fish are///.

 " Any insight to why the cohos have been an issue at the hatchery or why they seem to have issues with disease specific to the browns?  Lastly why would flourishing Atlantics lead to the demise of Steelhead- predation from the atlantics or competition for forage like baitfish?"


At the SOL meeting in the spring, Mike Connerton reported that they had a problem with eye-up of coho eggs last year, and lost a portion of the eggs before hatch out.  I don't think this is reflected in the 2013 numbers but will show up in the 2014 stocking numbers, as the 2013 numbers only show about a 15% shortfall.  Because of the disease problems in so many systems, they can't go elsewhere for replacement eggs anymore.   But cohos are a sort of "extra" to the program, numbers reared are way below kings.  They stock about 30K cohos in the SR, and over 300K kings, plus the naturals.  They are working on the fin clip studies with cohos next.    As to Browns, they had problems statewide for disease in one hatchery, so they missed the 392K target for LO in 2013, but still stocked 331K, not sure about impacts for 2014. On the Atlantics and Steelhead (or kings), there is at least one camp of people who want to see restoration of the native lake Ontario ecosystem, which would have Lake trout and Atlantics as the top predators.  In a full realization of that scenario, all these exotics would go.  Atlantics and steelhead, being of similar size, compete a lot for habitat and spawning sites.  But short of finding a magic bullet to get rid of the alewifes,  I don't see a natural species only policy happening, as the king is still the control valve for the herring.  We actually had a short lived and sparse alewife die-off on the lake this summer, which got a lot of people remembering what a manure pile the beaches were in June and July before the salmon program. 
 
L13

Thank L13 I appreciate the info.

HT are the catching very many browns lakers and or steel on the lake? Or is it too early yet?