Glad about being able to get a room at least during the week!  It is getting CO-O-O-O-O-OLD at night, the brace is due to come off this week, Selkirk closes soon, and Stony's has always been a little, eh, aromatic for my tastes.  Time  to move indoors.
 

hot tuna
This is what your river views mean to me...
The lake fishing has been absolutely fantastic the last 2-3 years. This my friends is firsthand information.
Now if you believe that there is more predators than forage, blah.
The predator base, besides lake trout is lower than it has been . Some want you to believe that natural reproduction is increasing the predator population , poopy, chock.. this is a ploy..

The fishery was created for the lake charters and they are having their day. With fewer fish, the trib angler are getting the short stick and if L-13 is correct with bigger cuts, the river guys will take a much bigger hit

What is your science, and evidence, other than a few internet and cellphone calls from guys out on the Lake?
 
The general "rule" with fish has always been that the better they are biting, the hungrier they are.( Maybe not for BTDT, even hungry fish seem to avoid him (and me!))  The last few years you can deploy junk lines, side planners, downriggers, almost anything, with virtually any lure and catch salmon.  Back when the lake was majorly overpopulated with bait,  even the top charter guys were not catching a lot of salmon in the Lake, many of the captains generally relied on Lake Trout for saving them from the "no fish free trip".  And the staging areas were loaded with fish in the fall, and the runs were "epic."  Now I'm hearing whining from the west end that there are no staging fish, they all went to the Salmon River, and whining from the Salmon River (and I have this first hand, too) that there are few fish.  I think I last saw a minor alewife die off in 2000, they were annual major events, even after the kings went in, for many years.  Smelt and emeralds are nearly unheard of.  If a farmer puts too many cows in a field for the available forage, exceeds the carrying capacity, the sickly and marginal cows do not necessarily suffer disproportionally and die, leaving the remainder of the forage for healthy cows, who remain healthy and prosper.  Rather, the whole population suffers, and while the weakest and most marginal may die first, the condition of all the cows suffers.  Salmon  size and condition has been reported to be on a decline for a number of years now.  Yellow Perch are generally inversely correlated to alewife populations; if there are lots of alewife, perch are grazed down as fry, and the perch population suffers.  Bays like Sodus have been having world class perch fishing the last few winters. These are all in addition to data provided by a long running and "well vetted in many waterbodies around the world" trawling program that showed a massive reduction in the Alewife population from what it was early in the program, so massive that the biologists now divide the data set into pre mussel and post mussel periods, and that recently shows what many of us see as a dangerous indication of exceedance of carrying capacity, namely the large reductions in year class sizes between the first and second year, and the extremely low numbers of large adults.  In this year's trawls, this is compounded by what looks like a pretty poor hatch in 2018.  One hypothesis that I jokingly offered on another website is that the Salmon all died of gluttony.  Steelhead a few years back were eating many more alewife to get a meal, and they disappeared, according to the toxicologists, because of too much thiaminase.  While not as susceptible as steelhead or Atlantics, Pacific salmon are also susceptible to Vitamin B deficiency.  I also pointed out what seems obvious to me, it is still warm, it was 91 in Rochester on Monday.   I'm happy to hear what pafisher says about lots of fish in the hatchery, but when  I was up there last year around this time, it was loaded too, but they were all green cohos, not the ripe kings that they are looking for first.  But like I said I think it is still early.
 
How quickly we seem to forget that for three years in a four years period, all kings stocked into the lake were fin clipped, and when  the returns were analyzed, it was approximately 50% of the returning fish had no fin clip.  MAGIC, they regenerated their fins! This study is so thoroughly mistrusted by the "you stock 'em, we box 'em" crowd out on the Lake that it will be repeated when the Coho study is done.  But I seem to recall a lot of chatter here about how many adipose fins were showing up, and they continue to document  massive numbers of fry in the SR every spring. 
 
I've heard nothing from my friends at NYSDEC about what they are contemplating, and we have not seen if there is any positive impact from the first round of cuts yet, and until they take eggs, they will not have the data on condition.  The fishery was created for alewife control, with the Lake fishery as a secondary benefit, and it has certainly cleaned up the dead alewife free beaches.  The trib fishery may never have existed except that the fish were too contaminated to sell for cat food.  Be aware, however, that there are elements of the "deep lake boxers" that would curtail the trib fishery again so that there is no threat to their fishery, and maybe just because they don't like proposals that would cut their limits on trout.  So it would be good to pay attention both to the data, and the different voices supporting or rejecting it.
 
Finally, I have no clue on what would motivate a fisheries biologist to "cob" the data in any direction.  And if you take the time to read the Fish Community Objectives, they are pretty much right on them.  Of course, that kind of planning effort also recognizes that the Canadians and the Feds have a say in the management of this International waterbody, and those partners are as interested in native species as introduced ones in the overall mix.  However,  if everyone keeps rejecting any data that does not support what they want to see,  I'm with Andy Todd of OMNRF, just throw in a bunch of stockies and see what comes back, and lets not spend all this money doing science that noone will listen to anyway in between.   And if it goes to hell in a handbag, oh, well!

Not fishing,but I just bought gas at a Full Service station,have not seen that in YEEAARRS!!! Kwik Fill in Pulaski.

May you enjoy good health, good times and tight lines wherever you go.

L-13.
It's not cell calls or internet hype. Just real people I talk to regularly
Sorry

So what is your, and their, science, and evidence?

I have also come to the conclusion to let the circus take and partake in the return of what salmon do migrate. It's been a long haul since I first decided to actually fish for spawning salmon but with the commercialism swath of down low and up high in terms of pay to play, it's disgusting now.

"Now if you believe that there is more predators than forage, blah.
The predator base, besides lake trout is lower than it has been . Some want you to believe that natural reproduction is increasing the predator population , poopy, chock.. this is a ploy.."
 
That is the "poopy, chock" to which I referred.  No one has said there are more predators than bait.  But the data does exhibit declines in the bait that indicate a high risk that carrying capacity is being exceeded.  Lake trout were lowered 20% , the same amount percentage wise , as Kings, in the first cut, and were further reduced in the second cut due to problems at the Federal Hatchery.  Lake trout have also always been stocked at much lower numbers than kings.  The fin clip study demonstrated conclusively that Kings spawned in the Salmon River returned as adults.  That would mean that if DEC stocked X number of Kings, and Y number recruited from natural reproduction, we now have X+Y number of Kings, and except in Bizarro world in Superman,  that would be an increase. 
 
"Ploy" implies some sort of conspiracy.  I have spoken to Steve LaPan, director for Great Lakes Fisheries for NYSDEC, and we agree that the fastest way to get the king salmon out of Lake Ontario would not be to reduce stocking, but rather increase it to the point where the alewife did collapse.  If anyone were desiring to get the King out of Lake Ontario,  but the Fish Community Objectives are pretty clear, and the king is top dog in that document, if anyone took the time to read it.
 
First hand knowledge got us from the stone ax to the metal axe, which you might still be using to cut your firewood without science, which is how we get to devices like chainsaws.  (and that is a metaphor.)

On my honeymoon I caught and released a 24".brown in Monument Falls, best fish of the trip, which also included 19" and 18" browns and a 17" rainbow in the Pocket water below Wilmington.  And, it being my honeymoon, I only got to fish a few times for a couple of hours, lots of gift shops in Lake Placid and other sites to see.
 
I streamgaged for the USGS ( as part of a coop with them, not as a Federal employee) in Irondequoit Creek, which experiences large amounts of anchor ice.  The stream has continued to improve as a natural brown trout stream throughout.  Fish swim away from conditions they don't like, and yes, on the Ausable there are places where they can't return upstream, but that's how the big fish end up in Lake Everest and down in Ausable Forks. 
 
Also, NYS Stocks 1 year old ( 8-9") and 2 yr old (12-14") trout.  Larger fish stocked in the Ausable come from other sources, like the Essex County hatchery, or the local Chamber of Commerce, or so said Mr Betters in his books.

Do they plan on a release anytime soon?

Whenever I  FISHED someone would usually RUN over and start slashing below me.
They think you see something and are trying for it.
Guy came between my son and I who were standing bout 25 feet apart to do that.
Crossed his line a few times and he- and a fish- left.
Combat fishing.
 
Never see this idiocy anyplace but the SR- worse when its slow.
 
I dont believe its a question of water levels or temps at this mid Oct time. IMHO their body clock says SPAWN and they gotta go.
Just very very few going lol.

r3g3
 
My November trip is on a real big hold.

While reports of steelhead in the Lake have been pretty good all summer, the last "problem year", they were doing well in the lake and got into the river pretty well, and then  went belly up.  Most years, most of the kings have gone belly up by November, and you really don't want the ones that remain, even if it is a late run.  But next Monday IS Columbus Day, if there are big numbers to come they had better hurry up!
 
Sorry to have missed you, the Doc moved me to Stage 2, which is moving the finger almost all the time I am awake, to break the tendon free from the scar tissue, said if I can keep it clean and dry I can " resume normal activities."  2Bob says there is nothing "normal" about me or my activities!   I could barely move the thing after keeping it immobilized for almost 4 weeks, but after 2 days I have almost 50% of the range of  motion back, I could hold a rod, but I'm not sure what all the casting would do to it, repetitive motions are still verboten, and I worry about a fall, as injuring it before I get it totally moving would end recovery.  If you still come up in November, maybe we will cross paths.  2B was up there Tuesday, but came home early as the crowd was depressing.
 

Its almost enough to make me think about taking up wing shooting.  But it is my trigger finger that's mucked up! 
 
DSR yesterday reported nearly no action, and even after a note about activity in the estuary Tuesday dusk, pretty dead yesterday.   They boxed them all in the Lake!

From these reports I can be happy that I was there when I was,now if we could only get some STEADY RAIN to get the tribs flowing out west I can get enthused about fishing for Steel out west in Erie and Ohio.

Computer has been down for a few days so I jumped on all things SR today when it came back up.
Empty estuary, very poor fishing in DSR and few ( if any) reports from throughout the river.
One guy did show a black King from the lower fly but most individual reports are from guides fishing the DSR
( if photos are indicative of where they are) which we all know is nice but not representative of the river as a whole- or the 'john Q experience)
They seem mostly trying to turn the conversation to steel, however the reports are welll- not great-at best.
Kings ,one may believe, are pretty much toast now.
Anyone remember what a Coho is ??
 
Tough year-glad I got up early for a bit and hit a couple.

Yea- I kinda agree- till they get that bait/predator thing straightened out it will be a rollercoaster ride.
Just hope they can manage it.
Heck it was just 2 years ago the Thiamine thing showed us how desperate the situation really is.
I trust the point that fish in the lake hitting very readily no matter the lure are HUNGRY indicating a lack of bait.
Gotta wonder how many went belly up out there.
When I fish a stream and they hit like crazy they are hungry but then when they don't ya know there is some kinda hatch or feed  going into the water and they don't have to take my lousy presentation lol.
Lake guys saying it was nuts out there may not be the good sign we thought it was.
Whatever it is, I hope the State can fix it- or we simply have to adjust to a different kind of SR fishing.
As have said before- Pulaski may change too.
I'll still go as long as physically able- love it up there.
 
And then ya get reports-lol
A guy hooked up with 45 to 50 fish yesterday  in town.
Another says no fish or fishermen in UFZ yesterday.