http://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/NYSDEC/bulletins/138b3f7#.Vs-aalURgbA.facebook
 
Tuesday march 8th at the Pulaski high school  for local guys.

For Release: Thursday, February 25, 2016

DEC Announces State of Lake Ontario Meetings

Biologists to Update Status of Lake's Fisheries

The public will have the opportunity to learn about the State of Lake Ontario fisheries at public meetings held in Monroe, Niagara, and Oswego counties in March, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Acting Commissioner Basil Seggos announced today. Lake Ontario and its embayments and tributaries support thriving populations of fish, including a variety of trout and salmon, bass, walleye, yellow perch and panfish.
"Lake Ontario and its tributaries provide world-class angling opportunities" Acting Commissioner Seggos said. "Under Governor Cuomo's NY Open for Fishing and Hunting Initiative, Lake Ontario's high-quality fisheries and associated economic benefits are thriving. The State of Lake Ontario meetings provide an excellent opportunity for individuals interested in the lake to interact with the scientists who study its fisheries."
New York's Lake Ontario waters comprise more than 2.7 million acres. A 2007 statewide angler survey estimated more than 2.6 million angler days were spent on Lake Ontario and major tributaries. The estimated value of these fisheries exceeded $112 million annually to the local New York economy.
The meeting dates and locations are as follows:

• Thursday, March 3: 6:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. at the Cornell Cooperative Extension Building, 4487 Lake Avenue, Lockport, Niagara County. The meeting is co-hosted by Niagara County Cooperative Extension and the Niagara County Sportfishery Development Board.
• Tuesday, March 8: 6:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. at the Pulaski High School auditorium, 4624 Salina Street, Pulaski, Oswego County. The meeting is co-hosted by the Eastern Lake Ontario Salmon and Trout Association. In the event of heavy lake-effect snow, the meeting will be held at the same time and location on March 9.
• Monday, March 14: 6:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) campus (Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science building (76-1125) - Carlson Auditorium), Rochester, Monroe County. The meeting is co-hosted by RIT and the Monroe County Fishery Advisory Board.

Staff from DEC, the United States Geological Survey, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will make a number of presentations, including updates on the status of trout and salmon fisheries, forage fish, and stocking programs. Staff from the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry will also be in attendance. The meetings will provide ample time at the end of the scheduled program for the audience to interact with the presenters.
Information about DEC's Lake Ontario fisheries assessment programs can be found online. For further information contact Steven LaPan, New York Great Lakes Fisheries Section Head at Cape Vincent Fisheries Research Station, (315) 654-2147.

I probably will attend the one in Pulaski. I will take notes.

Trev,
In all due respect, I think they are aware and their preliminary reports from their trawls & surveys indicate that things are not good on the big pond right now.
I'm pretty sure their SOL meetings will report that and hopefully have a plan of action
http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/27068.html

edit

Hope you fill the boat Tuna- you deserve it after last year
 

Thanks for the well wishes Trev . We already have a contingency plan in place , dead drift live bait for lakers or straight jigging them . I'm cool with catching & releasing them all day , any day .
Speaking of the SOL:
I have read some exerts from the Rochester meeting :
Salmon hit a 13 year low . Stocking will be on target for this year .
Lake trout stocking will not meet target due to hatchery problems but remember , last season was a 300,000 increase over previous targets .
Alewives :
Adults are thriving , YOY are not . Spring trawls will provide needed info on whether they have to enact an emergency plan .
That's all I got for now.
As for river reports :
Mine will be non existing because honestly , I have no future into the river fishery.
Good luck and be well

10-4 lucky .
Did I hit the points pretty accurate as you may have read as well ?

Hey guys, have any of yinz seen this stuff coming out of Washington State?
 
https://weather.com/news/news/salmon-caught-near-seattle-tested-positive-for-wide-range-of-drugs 

10-4 on the "don't inhale" so, your saying, don't smoke em? (lol)
 
Pretty scary stuff, finding drugs in the systems of the people eating the fish.
 
We have a 'like story' with the Susquehanna River here in PA. but I don't think anybody was ever tested for the suspected drugs said to be destroying that fishery.
 
While I got ya on the line congratulations on your success with getting 'The Mae' out of her winter storage.  I've Been There Done That and know the relief of beating the mud.
 
Tight lines.
 
 
 
 

I am sitting here now waiting for it to start

I will post a summation from my notes tomorrow. Needless to say there was alot of dancing around, putting off, changing the subject and saying we just don't know regarding the low numbers.  Then there were the  folks lobbying for C&R and shutting down the fly zone in the winter due to freezing fish. . It was a State of the Lake meeting not a lobbying and complaint meeting. There was one in particular who had to be told ''we are not going there tonight'' several times.

It is not rocket science.  The fish have a normal life expectancy which says most mature at 3 years in the lake.  If they do not return at 3 years, they are not in Bermuda on vacation, they hit the mud someplace in between.  The "why" is a lot more rocket science and since one season or even two is short for harvesting data, they will not have definitive answers, and these guys will say that they could hypothesize all day, but it is all speculation.
 
"They have no plans to clip steelhead in the future to determine natural repo from what I gathered. If things keep going they will look into lowered lake limits for steel".
They did have plan for this but it was down the list from the coho project just getting started.  Numbers from this on steelhead do not have much effect because they are not pushing the steelhead envelope, there is a lot more carrying capacity in the lake than there is for Kings, where the natural reproduction could impact alewife populations,.  But there are controlled studies and they take at least 3 seasons so it will be a while before the steelhead study is up. 

Thanks for attending and reporting Clint :
Here are my concerns / questions
Invasives - program
Gobbies - how are they affecting the fishery and what is being done if any as a control , aka lake trout ?
Lamprey - is there still a program in place to use chemical in the streams
Zebra mussel - is the zooplankton being so consumed that the alewives are in jeopardy

See to me it's about the forage base of the lake , without that you can stock all the fish you want but the end result will be for nothing .

Oh yea, what are the bloaters / herring stocking results . Also what is the state of emeralds and smelt in the lake
Thanks again

June 1, 2016
Lake Ontario Stakeholders:
Maintaining the Lake Ontario trophy Chinook salmon fishery depends on having sufficient numbers of
alewife to feed them and maintain good Chinook growth. A record‐high year class of alewife was
produced in 2012 (the 2012 “year class”), however, reduced survival of the 2012 year class did not
increase the adult population as managers expected in 2014 when these fish reached age 2. The two
severe winters/cool summers of 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 resulted in very poor 2013 and 2014 alewife
year classes, and the 2012 alewife year class likely makes up the majority of the current adult alewife
population in Lake Ontario. The Lake Ontario Committee (“LOC”: Steve LaPan representing the NYS
Department of Environmental Conservation [NYSDEC] and Andy Todd representing the Ontario Ministry
of Natural Resources and Forestry [OMNRF]) is concerned that without young alewife to replace the
adults that are eaten, there may not be sufficient alewife numbers to support trophy Chinook salmon in
a few years.
The preliminary results of the spring 2016 bottom trawl survey for alewife conducted by the NYSDEC, the
U.S. Geological Survey appear below. Since this is the first year that OMNRF staff conducted alewife
trawling, there are no comparable data to compare it to. The NYSDEC/USGS survey provides an index of
relative abundance (i.e. how this year’s catch compares to other years; it is not an estimate of actual
numbers of alewife in the lake) of both the adult alewife population (fish age 2 and older) and 1 year old
or “yearling” alewife (i.e. those fish that were spawned in 2015, or the 2015 “year class”). In Figure 1,
please note that adult alewife abundance index declined markedly from 2015 to 2016. Also, the estimate
of the relative size of the 2015 alewife year class (i.e. the bar for 2016 in Figure 2) measured at age 1 is
well below the 1994‐2015 average. Since these fish will contribute to the adult population next year when
they are age 2, the LOC does not expect a marked improvement in the adult population in 2017. Our
science staff will continue their analyses of these data, and will develop projections of relative alewife
abundance in 2017 and beyond.
The LOC’s current concerns are not related to adult alewife abundance in 2016; we will not be surprised
if fishing is excellent in 2016, and Chinook size is good as well. Our concerns surround the adult alewife
spawning population in 2017 and beyond. Since a large portion of the adult alewife population should be
composed of fish ages 3 ‐ 5, the LOC expects several years in the immediate future when the size of the
alewife population will be greatly reduced. The LOC has asked the Lake Ontario Technical Committee to
work together and provide the LOC with an assessment of the relative risks associated with a range of
management options this summer.
Best regards,
Steve LaPan, Great Lakes Section Head, NYSDEC
Andy Todd, Manager, Lake Ontario Management Unit, OMNRF
Figure 1. Relative adult alewife (age‐2 and older) abundance index (average number caught per 10‐
minute trawl tow) in the U.S. waters of Lake Ontario during late April – early May, 1978‐2016.
Figure 2. Abundance index (average catch per 10‐minute trawl tow) for yearling (age‐1) Alewife in the
U.S. waters of Lake Ontario during late April – early May, 1978‐2016.I'm