Spiel

Stressers changing fish June 4th, 2009 Michael Woods / The Kingston Whig-Standard Lake Ontario getting warmer Lake Ontario is accumulating what one expert calls “stressers,” factors that may affect fish perhaps more than some species can handle. “It’s changing the fish communities from colder fish communities to warmer ones,” warns John Casselman. “Different species now are becoming more abundant. “I’ve seen this dramatic change.” Casselman, a professor emeritus of biology at Queen’s University, was honoured by the Great Lakes Fishery Commission Tuesday at the beginning of its two-day conference in Kingston. The organization, which co-ordinates fishery research and ecosystem management in the Great Lakes, awarded Casselman the Jack Christie- Ken Loftus award for distinguished scientific contributions toward understanding Great Lakes ecosystems. Casselman said climate change is already having a dramatic effect. In the summer months, Lake Ontario’s temperature is two to five degrees warmer than the air. “It isn’t just the ambient heat, but it’s the solar energy,” he said. “That energy that’s coming in is being trapped in the water more than it is on land.” As a result, warm-water fish such as sunfish and bass are in abundance, while cold-water fish such as lake trout and whitefish are suffering. Casselman said fishers should adjust their harvest accordingly. “The warm-water fish are increasing in massive numbers, so we should be exploiting them and using them.” In recent work with Natural Resources Canada, Casselman said Lake Ontario’s temperature is set to increase four degrees over the next 100 years if climate change isn’t addressed. “We’ve seen a one and a half degree change in the past 20 years, and we know there’s two degrees programmed in, even if we solve climate change right now.” Casselman said one way to fight climate change is to make local fish more readily available. “Whenever I get a piece of fish it’s been flown from Honduras,” he said. “It’s flown 1,500 miles to get on my plate when I’ve got excellent fish out my front door that don’t cost me carbon units.” When Casselman began his research career 40 years ago, the Lake Ontario fishery was much different than it is today. “It used to be essentially a big commercial fishery,” he said. “At one time in the 1950s, they were still harvesting probably a thousand tonnes of fish from Lake Ontario in commercial fisheries.” With the growth of recreational fisheries, though, he’s seen quite a shift. “You had to give up one because of the other because the lake only produces so much fish,” he said. “We’ve been able to communicate to recreational fishers that they can’t harvest like they used to. As a result, catch and release has become a very important aspect of fishery management.” Casselman, who worked for the Ministry of Natural Resources before retiring and joining Queen’s, chairs a working group on the American eel, an Atlantic seaboard fish that has all but disappeared from Lake Ontario, in part because it is being killed in canals, dams and turbines. “When we Europeans arrived on these shores 400 years ago, half the inshore fish biomass — the weight of fish in shore down to 30 feet deep — was the American eel. “Now they’re gone. This one fish, if you look at it carefully, is showing all of the stressers that we’re placing on these very important waters.” “We have to do something about this.”

Spotted musky cross the Canada border with a broodstock passport June 1, 2009 / www.great-lakes.org MADISON – The 1,100 fingerlings that made the road trip from Ontario, Canada, to their new homes in three northeastern Wisconsin lakes are among new efforts this spring in the decades-long quest to restore a self-sustaining population of the Great Lakes strain spotted musky to Green Bay. These young fish will eventually serve as broodstock for Green Bay. Taken as eggs from Georgian Bay and later certified disease free, they were raised in the small, Sir Sanford Fleming College hatchery in Ontario, Canada and stocked into Elkhart Lake, Sheboygan County, and Anderson and Archibald lakes in Oconto County. The $59,000 project, funded by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, money from the Fox River environmental restoration settlement, Musky Clubs Alliance of Wisconsin, Muskies Canada and Titletown Chapter of Muskies Inc., is aimed at increasing the genetic diversity in Green Bay’s spotted musky population, which in turn will yield healthier fish, according to fisheries biologist David Rowe. “Greater genetic diversity helps to protect a population from changes in their environment,” Rowe says. “If all the fish have the same genotype, they are all likely to succumb to the same illness or an environmental change like a warmer climate. If there is a great amount of diversity, the changes that impact some fish will not affect all fish in the population. This means the population can better adapt to changing conditions, and then they pass those stronger traits on to their offspring.” The three receiving the Canadian fish have a 50" size limit to protect them, giving DNR multiple years to collect eggs before the musky would be vulnerable to harvest, according to Rowe. A $200,000 grant from the Natural Resources Damage Assessment that resulted from the Fox River environmental settlement will allow the DNR to stock the Ontario-raised strain of musky into the recently established brood lakes for the next four years, which will continue to increase the genetic variation and abundance of the re-established Green Bay population. Spotted musky are native to Green Bay, but the population collapsed in the early 1900s due to over-fishing, pollution and habitat destruction. Thanks to stocking efforts that began in 1989, the population in the bay is older and larger than ever, according to Rowe. “The musky have grown fast in Green Bay’s waters,” Rowe says. “We estimate the population in the lower bay somewhere between 5,000 to 10,000 musky and just this spring we handled about a dozen fish larger than 50 inches in our nets.” Even though the musky population has been revived and anglers are finding opportunities for trophy fish, biologists, who have been looking for signs of natural reproduction for 20 years, are just now starting to see hopeful results. “Last fall, for the first time, we collected two, unmarked fingerling musky in the lower Menomonie River,” Rowe says. “We know from genetic analysis that these two had the same genetic markers as the adult fish from Green Bay, meaning they are Great Lakes Spotted muskies, and the first evidence of natural reproduction.” To help determine why the DNR hasn’t seen more spotted musky reproduction, fisheries crews have begun a two-year study funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Restoration Act Program and several musky angling clubs including; Dave’s Musky Club, C&R Musky Club, Winnebagoland Musky Club, M&M Musky Club, Titletown Chapter of Muskies Inc., and the Between the Lakes Chapter of Muskies Inc. This spring 20 female musky were inserted with miniature radio transmitters when they were captured during DNR fyke-netting. When those females spawn and expel their eggs, the transmitter will also drop, pinpointing their spawning location. This information will allow biologists to identify the area and see if there are any problems that might be hindering natural reproduction such as habitat degradation, poor water quality, or invasive species.

An 87-pound catfish on 4-pound line June 5, 2009 Ed Zieralski / www3.signonsandiego.com When anglers are using 4-pound test, they're usually either trying to finesse a bass, fool a trout or catch a panfish. They're certainly not expecting to hook into an 87-pound blue catfish. But that's what happened to Adam Hinkle, a La Mesa angler who caught, weighed and released the big blue Wednesday at Lower Otay Lake. Hinkle, an avid bass angler, told Lower Otay reservoir keeper Bryan Norris that he, indeed, was fishing for bass when a big blue catfish struck. Hinkle told Norris he was working a Scrounger jig in Bushlow Cove when his line gave him a sudden jolt. He had 4-pound test line on his spinning reel, so the battle was on. More than an hour later, Hinkle brought the big catfish up and then took it back to the Lower Otay dock to be weighed. At 87 pounds and caught on 4-pound test line, the catch shatters the current International Game Fish Association line-class world record for that line-class. The present line-class world record for blue catfish on 4-pound test line is 47 pounds, 9 ounces, a fish caught by Bob Shepherd in January of 2002 on the James River in Virginia. Shepherd also has the 2-pound line-class world record for a 36-pound, 9-ounce blue catfish. Had he chosen to do it, Hinkle could have applied to the International Game Fish Association for a freshwater line-class, world record. But Hinkle chose not to do that. “Adam didn't want to pursue the line-class record due to the fact the fish was caught accidentally,” Norris said. Accidental catch or not, it is one giant fish on some very light line. Hinkle's catch ranks up there with some of the top blue catfish ever caught in the county. Steve Odomsouk's 113.4-pounder tops the list, caught last year at San Vicente before it closed. Others include Roger Rohrbouck's 101-pounder, also from San Vicente, still a IGFA line-class world record for 12-pound test; and Justin Fools' 99-pound blue catfish, also at San Vicente.

Fish coughs up golden watch Thursday, June 4, 2009 Sheadon Ringor / www.kauaiworld.com Using a dull bamboo stick, Curt Carish clubbed this 10-inch nenue that was swimming awkwardly Wednesday afternoon at Port Allen Beach. Moments later, the nenue coughed up a golden watch in Carish’s cooler. Photos by Sheadon Ringor/The Garden Island ‘ELE‘ELE — With tennis shoes on, wallet in pocket and a bamboo stick in hand, Kaua‘i resident Curt Carish on Wednesday may have written himself into the most eccentric fisherman’s history book. To catch a fish with such simple gear would be an interesting tale in itself. But after Carish hauled in a nenue, the 10-inch fish coughed up a gold watch. “I was just sitting on a picnic table looking out into the ocean of Port Allen beach when I saw a nice-size fish awkwardly swimming close to shore,” Carish said. “So my friend Allen Hall gave me a bamboo stick and said, ‘Go get ‘em.’” Carish jumped into the waist-high water and struck the nenue a few times with the dull stick until the fish went limp. He said its stomach was abnormally large but he just threw the fish in the cooler along with his frozen chicken that he was going to barbecue that night. Tanley, a good friend of Carish, opened the cooler minutes later to discover a gold watch laying inches from the nenue’s mouth. “And the funniest thing is that the watch was on time and still ticking,” Carish said. Carish, who often hangs out at the private Port Allen Club with many other members, said in all of his 30 years on Kaua‘i he has never encountered anything this bizarre.

Well I'm glad to hear it all worked out Harry. I've been through a few of these hospital incompetencies myself lately, certainly leaves you wondering! Now you get on down to that pier and hassle them wee perchies.

Congratulations Dave, it'll definitely be a first for the world of angling.

Damn I'd say anything just bout anything to get here.

Is this in reference to your height?

I hadn't considered that, certainly possible.

I'm sure you'll be up and at 'em in no time Harry. I'm thinking river bank and lawn chair to start with.

Well Dawg, I have no experience in musky but I do know with large salmon you can literally hear the vertebrae seperating (pop, pop) when hoisted vertically.

Okay I got ask, how so?

Will you come and get it

LOL, it was the dealer that told me the cowlings were interchangable which led me to discover the motors were pretty much identical. What irks me is I would have bought a 90, no question. But here's the rub, my boat with a side console and steering wheel is rated for the 90, tiller model (which I have) is rated 75 max, on the same damn hull. The dealer would have installed the 90 if I requested it but you know what that would do the boat warranty and the issue of obtaining insurance.

Sleeping to close to the cat I'll bet. Nice fish Raf.

HaHaHaHaHaHaHa, and there you have it, the fat laker has sung.

It's definitely a migratory bow/steelie and is recovering from the rigors of migration and spawning. Assuming it survived it'll make it's way back into the lake to begin the process of fattening up.

Remind me not to let you near it Paul, especially if we've had a few.

Thanks for that Wiser, it explains in terms beyond layman (my level of understanding) what I pretty much suspected. I'm stuck with a 75 horse outboard.

You edit to fast.

It's electronic fuel injected (EFI) Terry. I'm thinking it's a computer module type thing.

You're killing me Simon, it'll be another 4 weelks yet before I get to fish walleye and pike.

Okay here's the deal, I have a 4 stroke 75 horse Merc and according to the Merc web site it is identical (near as I can tell) to the 90 horse in every detail. So the question is how do I, or can I tap into the extra 15 horse? 75 EFI FourStroke Specifications 90 EFI FourStroke Specifications

I've just added a new must have for the boat, thanks. Makes me wonder why I didn't think of it.

Beauty Walleye. An outstanding fish anywhere, anytime. Good on you for releasing it.