again in my research about the lake fishery, (home on the computer again)..
The 2 year class is what is being targeted WAY out in that 500fow range..
The sure thing to put clients on rods has been Browns..
Most lake guys are complaining about the lack of mature salmon, a lot...
How or why this is, is still the mystery to be solved by the trib fishery..
I certainly don't have the expertise to figure out whats going on, flood, drought or natural reproduction, all I can do is take in the information , try to process it and make a plan from there..
 
I do believe that after these heavy west winds, fish will hit the river VERY soon.. How many, how big, for how long ?? Time will tell..
My initial thoughts are that it will be a light amount of salmon this season.. Basically, more people standing around looking and waiting for the fish, that may never come..
If you can hit the river EARLY this season, it might be the best game in town..
 
Steelhead:
Browns are easy targets for the lake guys, steelhead are not so and there have been good indications of some nice catches (luck) of steelhead happening out there..
I do believe the steelhead numbers are just FINE and there will be plenty throughout..  Since the 1 trout limit went into effect, the number of fish returning has been 3 fold.. I'm just fine with a 6 lb silver bullet trout in the fall and a 12-15 lb honker in the spring..
 
 

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.

You know honestly I rarely pay attention but a buddy and I were just discussing the stocking program.  He essentially insisted that the program isn't it really impacting the overall return.  As he put it, "it's a grooming program".  Although I wondered what that really even meant I was under the impression the stocking program was still very necessary but perhaps I'm totally wrong.  Thanks again for the discussion, I find it interesting understanding the impact of stocking on a potentially self sustaining ecosystem if you will.  My guess years of work is really starting to pay dividends.

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 )

The biggest pay back per say has been the min-flow standards set gosh, 15 years ago ?
It has helped the Salmon returns VASTLY from natural reproduction (They leave the river before the temps hit in the summer)..
 
If some of the ole timers recall , 3 years after they cut the stocking in 1/2 the salmon returns were HORRIBLE for about 5 years.. Then the light went off and the ecologist earned their keep.. Min flows were established , not for the chinooks but for the Atlantic's and Skams.. Well the Chinooks THRIVED the Atlantic's failed..
I think they are getting closer on the Atlantic's though, being they figured out it was bad diet in the Lake Ontario food chain.. I 'm not so sure the problem will be solved however as it's hard to control what a fish will eat..  While I know they are a fish that are dear to the heart of some, it's still a tough $$$$$$$$$ sell for myself after ALL this time..

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

Clint, If I remeber correctly it was around Oct. 10th when the river began elevating to flood stage. And it was 2-3k for quite some time with murky muddy water from all of the sand deposits in the reservoirs and upper stretches. Salmon were close to gone when river completely stabilized but chuck full of steelhead. the dsr ended up with many dead fish after water receded... Had heard that they did get special permission from dec to physically take fish back to main river. So who knows about the outcome of this season.

Even if its a light year I'm sure it will be nothing but typical for my targeting and expectations.. Some decent fishing til mid September with a back down when crowds come. If I have some multiple hook up afternoon and mornings I'm fine with that. But "IF " it is a bad year for natural returns it will be a very noticeable decrease in numbers and it may end up being a year with weeks of stragglers and some small pushes of fish with one bigger run mid to late season. So yes, it may be a season that often supports more fisherman than fish. I'm sure some of the long time river stompers remember seasons waiting for that run to come and when it finally came it was a whopper. The recent years have changed so much. Seems to be steady fish movement with multiple large (some amazingly large) runs

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. 
 

fischnmachine
You know honestly I rarely pay attention but a buddy and I were just discussing the stocking program.  He essentially insisted that the program isn't it really impacting the overall return.  As he put it, "it's a grooming program".  Although I wondered what that really even meant I was under the impression the stocking program was still very necessary but perhaps I'm totally wrong.  Thanks again for the discussion, I find it interesting understanding the impact of stocking on a potentially self sustaining ecosystem if you will.  My guess years of work is really starting to pay dividends.

The stocking program is not just based on the SR, but all the tribs, and the SR is the only significant non-Hatchery reproduction.  They stock a lot in the SR to get adequate returns to the hatchery to maintain the entire fishery.  While some of the naturals may stray into other tribs, most go back to the SR, so ending stocking in the SR will have a profoundly negative effect on the charter and other stream systems, so I would not hold my breath.  And they are non native, invasive species whether they reproduce in the SR or are put in the lake by the state.  Make enough noise about ending stocking and it could come down to ending Kings and cohos, which I know a lot of guys who would support in favor of atlantics, but we could loose the steelhead as well in that scenario.  I would trust the biologists, Dan Carrol and his staff in Region 7, and the rest of the LO staff, are all great scientists.  Go to the biologists reports pages on the DEC website, and you get the numbers rather than speculation. http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/27068.html
 
Just sayin....
 
L13   

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