Nice observations folks and thanks for the input steelie, that goes for everyone .
I said it way back about the salmon in the lake and just my observations were from charter and boaters reports on forums.
L-13, I have to think that the survey on the lake is a bit skewed. Yes there were great early catches of salmon early. Most all the reports and discussions I have been following on the lake have said the salmon were mostly ALL jacks and on the west end.
The thermocline hardly set up so the normal July- Aug trolling methods were difficult to pattern the mature fish. Most charters opted for trout and lake trout to put clients on fish. For those species there were great catches reported.
Along come mid Aug into sept and finally the mature salmon started being caught more on a regular basis. Reason being could be because they were staging , more boats targeting them so more reports ? I don't know but I sure do know it was a very " off " year on the Great Lake for salmon.
Also of note was not due to a lack of alewives

I don't know what data has been reported for alewives for 2014. I know we had a die off down here in June, first time I saw dead alewifes since 2002,  Region 8 fisheries indicated it was all along the lake.  Past data says alewifes are seriously impacted by harsh winters, and 2013-14 was the harshest in a long time.  If the Boat survey is skewed, it has always been skewed, DEC has been using it for years as an indicator of relative health of the populations.  A lot of this also seems to be eastern Lake, as I saw lots of Salmon in the Genny, although they were late, and were still around into mid November, and that is reported for the Oak and 18 Mile as well.  The lack of eggs everyone has spoken of could also be a function of steady moderate flows during spawning, so that the vast majority of eggs spawned actually got buried, or it could be what I speculated a while back, that a lot more salmon running late dug redds in the middle river where most of the posters here do not go, but a lot of savvy boat guides may have know of, as there were a lot more boats going out of Pineville, at least when I was there.  I have yet to hear anyone I know in DEC comment on a bad salmon run, and they have certainly got their fingers on that pulse, as they depend on the eggs for the next few years. But since we are all free to speculate, here's another "perfect storm"  scenario.  ~60% of the returning kings when measured in the last couple of years are natural reproduction.  My recollection is that June a few years ago was extremely hot.  Maybe a whole year's worth of fry didn't make it to smolt in a "hot" river.  As the last few years have been natives followed by hatchery fish, the gap in September could be the lost year class.  This is transparent on the rest of the tribs because they don't have significant natural reproduction, they just had late runs of hatchery fish, but it would manifest as a major loss on the SR. Another possibility is that there was heavy alewife mortality, so a lot of fish hit the bottom in the deep lake from starvation, but then why only in the eastern basin as these fish rove the whole lake, traveling beaucoup miles in one day.  As to the Thiamine deficiency, this is one thing that has been very well documented as a result of an alewife diet, and has been strongly implicated in reproductive failure, but if everything else is constant, why would it weaken rainbows this year and not other years (although there was that long period of nearly no steelhead) and why not other fish that also consume alewives.  The kings that were in there were pretty stocky fish.  I think thin fish have not been getting enough to eat, and if what bait they were getting to eat depleted vitamin B, and then you hit them with additional stressors like lice or over and over and over being caught, a lot belly up.  And the "not getting enough to eat" part could be a lot less bait due to last winter. But I'll have to wait until Brian Weidel and Company release the trawl data in the spring.  And if that is also skewed, well, again that has been the measurement system for that part of the data for years.
 
My main point is that until the data comes back it is all just speculation, and it is a complex enough system to come up with myriad scenarios.
 
As to letting DEC know about things like Kelts dying, of course you should always drop a quarter to report what looks out of the ordinary, but most of the literature points to heavy post spawn mortality in trout and Atlantic salmon due to the rigors of spawning, but it is not complete post spawn mortality like it is for Kings and Cohoes. So I don't know that dropbacks dying is not to be expected.  If that worries you, stop fishing in mid-March and that eliminates an extra stress on the kelts.
 
If rainbow trout in some way rely on salmon eggs, how do they survive in systems like the Esopus and the Finger Lakes, where they are the dominant spawners and often over winter in the streams?  The eggs are mainly fat for the fry to live on in early development, certainly there were less, and the moderate flows would also have dislodged less insect larvae, but steelhead are also adapted to live off fat and protein reserves, they just usually don't enter the tributaries already using them. Also remember Randy Jones' post about the fish regurgitating alewives in the lower river, and my question as to whether they were alewives or shad. Certainly, the early steelies in the Genny were gorging themselves on the shad that were running here at the same time.  But the fish I caught in both the Genny and the SR were healthy, not thin for their length, and did not show signs of any undue stress.
 
I could probably spin another half dozen, but my fingers are tired! 
 
Cheers! 

I think that was great information / thoughts to share and thank you !! If your fingers get to tired then let 2 b take over.
Such knowledge from those that live the system always help us that visit ..

PS:
I could share some info on my Eco system down here but don't think you'd like it.. The local ( Albany ) rag puts it public

C

I
 

How about the skeins in many of the chinooks of 2012 and 2013??? One side was underdeveloped on most...

Lucky it may have been 2012 only... But it was most all of the early wild hens when that 20+ straight day run took place in 2012. I witnessed at least 10 that i cut up myself and spoke with a fish cleaning station who noticed a lot of it also. I haven't missed a season of seeing Chinook guts since 1990 and that was the only time I've ever seen it... Seemed odd... Those fish of 2012 "best ever season" (notice quotations) were the mature while this seasons mature fish (that showed up in low numbers) were 2 year olds... Maybe another correlation???

"1985 – 2014 Lake Ontario Fishing Boat Survey Summary for April 15 - September 30, 2014 
Since 1985, NYSSDEC surveyed boats operating in New York waters of Lake Ontario’s main basin from April through September.  The data collected from counts and interviews of fishing boats are used to manage Lake Ontario’s multi-million dollar trout and salmon fishery and provide valuable data on other fish species.  Survey results from April 15 - September 30, 2014 are lake-wide averages, and therefore may not reflect fishing quality experienced during some months and in some areas of Lake Ontario. Lake Ontario angler effort directed at trout and salmon has remained stable for more than a decade, and anglers experienced good fishing quality in 2014 (i.e. catch rate = number of trout and salmon caught per charter boat angler hour).   Lake-wide Chinook salmon catch rates remained above the long term average for the 12th consecutive year (2003-2014).  Evaluation of monthly and regional Chinook catch rates indicate that across much of the NY shoreline, catch rates were good to excellent from April through the second half of June, relatively poor from mid-June through mid-August, and then improved during the second half of August.  Anglers experienced the 7th consecutive year of excellent rainbow trout fishing, with catch rates above average along the entire NY shoreline.  Lake trout catch rates declined relative to 2013, but remained well above average.  Brown trout fishing quality was good to excellent throughout most of the open lake season.  Coho salmon lake-wide catch rate was below average.  Fishing effort targeting smallmouth bass remained low despite improved catch rates in 2013 and 2014.  A final 2014 survey report will be available in spring 2015"
 
Jana Lantry is the biologist in charge of the survey, and this came out of Cape Vincent.  The pdf viewer I have does not allow me to cut graphs, but total catch was up slightly from last year.  The report goes out to a lot of people from fisheries advisory boards and the charter industry and the visitors boards.  It is not on the DEC website yet, but may be soon. 

lot's of interesting stuff here. lets hope we find put the reason at some point. possibly I will check the health of a few on Monday.

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/sports/columnist/roth/2014/12/20/fishing-steelhead-lake-ontario-die/20704673/
Here is another article with more of the same.

http://www.bing.com/search?q=(Fitzsimons+et+al.+1998%3B+Tillitt+et+al.+2000&src=IE-TopResult&FORM=IE11TR&conversationid=629743AA499D40B08419CF9A2139CAEC
 
I only glanced at the article. It is about stressors increasing thiaminase in alvives.
 
 looks like you will have to click on the appropriate PDF article in the search, but it comes up.
 

But will there be spring fish, and how many are littering the bottom of the lake. As far as the kings my guess would be they are on the bottom of the lake and we are in for a few years of sub par runs. It's gonna take 3 years for this years stocked fish to come up and not to mention all the ''wild '' fish that will not be there to spawn and return.........

Too much bs propoganda and inflated opinions getting thrown around in the world...

Rg3, those early steel stayed congregated in the snag up through trestle for quite a while... They were large numbers butThey were not eating though. Could those have been the fish(100's or maybe more???) that have all died? And yes cohoes were down.

Lucky, it's the internet and social media for sure and I agree with you. With Facebook and all other social networks this world is going to ****. Its almost as if everyone is turning against each other... Black vs. White, left vs. Right, police vs. The public the gubbament the military... Hatred is being instilled through text and propaganda that gets shoved down everyone's throats via the internet. Family members and friends break ties over political arguments and disagreements... Blatant racism is being strewned across our screens... I can go on and on but yes I agree with propaganda and inflated sock puppet opinions fueling the fire everywhere in this world

GREAT- thanks Andy- my faith is restoring as we speak- that also speaks well of the lake conditions for the fish right now IMHO