Fall Salmon Run

[krawler]

In your opinion is the main fall salmon run over around Lake Ontario rivers? The big rain we had a few weeks brought in a lot of fish but was that the main run? I ask this because everywhere i read and check reports that guys trolling rivermouths or locations on the lake, most are reporting smaller salmon, no staging fish. id like to get out for some staging kings but are there any left?

 

thanks

[rhare]

When I trolled around the Credit this weekend I didnt mark 1/3 the fish that I did 2 weeks ago. Seems to be slowing down but guys are still getting them.

[CLofchik]

The fall run has sucked on Lake O this year, just a bad year. There's still going to be quasi-fresh fish trickling in for a few weeks still, but it started with a sigh and is going to end with a whimper.

[Marko]

I`ve been to Bronte twice in last 2 weeks and seen maybe 10 fish alltogether.

Went to Credit and seen couple as well. So the run has been prety dismal this year, talked to buncha angler and everybody was kinda scratching their heads wondering what happened to salmon this year.

[gone_fishin]

took a walk up duffin's creek from church st. and saw nothing right up to the dam.

[Burtess]

We need another couple of rains to bring that water up and I think you will see a big push of fish in Bronte. They come every year, heck, even last year with the dismal water level, they must complete their lifecycle...

 

Burt

[Photoz]

If the Ministry didn't put many in these tribs 4 years ago, you won't see many coming back this year. Very few of the eggs hatch & survive, most of what are caught are hatchery fish, or so I've been informed? There's been only a few good days at Port Hope all August & September. I nearly wore the paint off EVERY Rapala, Wally Diver & Cleo I had on Sunday & yesterday on the pier . . . . ONE hit. No accidental snags out of at least a thousand casts, I only 'bumped' about 10 . . . TOTAL! And outta 8 different days, up to 8 - 10 hours a day, I personally saw, maybe 3 dozen fish landed . . . . I got a third of 'em, and worked D A M N hard for them! Although there's lots in front of the dam, up by the highway, few are going up the ladder . . . . most are pretty black, and just outta steam! Hardly saw ANY jumping on Sunday, very few Monday either. I'm gonna dust off my panfish rods, should be a few perch in near shore on Simcoe?

[CLofchik]

If the Ministry didn't put many in these tribs 4 years ago, you won't see many coming back this year..........

 

In 1971, first year for chinook stocking, the MNR stocked 90000 chinook fry into the Ganaraska. In 2004.......zero. Most of the chinooks out east are actually natural (or Yankee strays....Thank You NYS!)......because the MNR pretty much stopped stocking 'nooks out there a long time ago.

 

Weee this is fun......

Okay in 2002 Oshawa got 50000, 2004.....25000.

Lol, in 1985 the Credit was stocked with THREE HUNDRED FIFTY FOUR THOUSAND!!!!!!!, dang. 2004, 85000..........

 

BTW, 354000 chinooks is more than what was stocked by the MNR in Port Dalhousie, Jordan, Burlington, Bronte & Credit.......COMBINED in 2004.

 

Historical dbases are fun...........only I'm not laughing anymore.

http://www.glfc.org/fishstocking/index.htm

[John Bacon]

Most of the chinooks out east are actually natural (or Yankee strays....Thank You NYS!)......because the MNR pretty much stopped stocking 'nooks out there a long time ago.

 

Highland Creek and Whitby Harbour are both stocked with Chinook salmon. I wouldn't assume that fish from the eastern GTA are either natural or strays from the USA. There are plenty hatchery fish out here.

 

We should have a much better idea of how much natural reproduction is occuring on Lake Ontario over the next few years. Starting with the stocking in the spring of 2008, all hatchery fish will have their adipose fins clipped. It will be interesting to see how many unclipped fish are caught three or four years from now.

[gone_fishin]

from what i've read, there's only a 2% survival rate on the salmon spawn in the Lake O tribs (approximate number of course)... if they stopped stocking... there will not be very many fish coming into the streams... but from the year they had on the lake this year, you would think the run would be pretty good, with a lot of big fish entering the rivers... the Great Ontario Salmon Derby had a lot of 30+ fish weighed in, last year there was only a couple fish that broke 30... maybe the main run is just late this year... i mean, it hasn't really been that cold yet, and we haven't had much rain since the beginning of August...

[kemper]

Lots of people thought that the run was terrible last year too, they just didnt wait around long enough!

 

I was still trying to drift around fresh(er) salmon in NOVEMBER while steelie fishin.

 

There has been LOTS of salmon at the mouth of the trib that I fish, a main run went up and I expect another run at the next big rainfall

[tributaryhunter]

still lots to go up, the conditions aren't rite yet give it some time

[tdotfisherman]

Between about 40 hours at the pier throwing spoons, and about 10 hours in the rivers, I have still yet to catch anything, or see much.. in those 50 hours, I've only seen 2 Chinook Salmon landed..

[kemper]

and there was an early push this year that most missed, early to mid august.

 

Remember how it rained every day for a month?

 

I was heading to the trib to trap some minnows and I ran into 20-25 chinnys the second week of august. Continued to catch freshies for about a week and a half and then they were all gone.

[jdmls]

and there was an early push this year that most missed, early to mid august.

 

Remember how it rained every day for a month?

 

I was heading to the trib to trap some minnows and I ran into 20-25 chinnys the second week of august. Continued to catch freshies for about a week and a half and then they were all gone.

 

 

The man is correct....I was out east at the end of August and couldn't believe how many fish were in one of the tribs. Best part is there was only a handfull of guys on the river. It was like Salmon paradise...thick runs of fresh fish, pools all to yourself, and fishing in a tank top.... Word got around fast ,cause within a week and a half there weren't many left

[fishermccann]

I agree, it was early, and it is over!

[kemper]

The man is correct....I was out east at the end of August and couldn't believe how many fish were in one of the tribs. Best part is there was only a handfull of guys on the river. It was like Salmon paradise...thick runs of fresh fish, pools all to yourself, and fishing in a tank top.... Word got around fast ,cause within a week and a half there weren't many left

 

 

Great wasn't it?

 

I had a blast catching fresh chrome chinnys with a higher than usual number of cohos tossed in.

 

No loose fish though, so I got no eggs which is a bit of an issue...

 

There is a reason I dont post my salmon fishin pics on the board, actually there is 2.

 

1) it starts a frenzy and everyone who has ever seen a 6'6" rod with a size 6 hook and a worm heads down to snag them and my peace is ruined

 

2) it starts the "SALMON DONT BITE IN THE RIVER" argument, with the poster of the pics getting flamed to no end.

[CLofchik]

Highland Creek and Whitby Harbour are both stocked with Chinook salmon. I wouldn't assume that fish from the eastern GTA are either natural or strays from the USA. There are plenty hatchery fish out here.

 

I'm old enough (and travel to the states enough) to know what lot's of fish are, your idea of "plenty" and mine are a bit different. The # of returns doesn't jibe with stocking, those fish are coming from somewhere. The MNR says there's alot of natural reproduction to justify not stocking, most guys with alot of rod time have a gut instinct that most are Yankee table scraps. The irony being the fin clipping you are talking about that will definitively answer this question in four years wouldn't be possible without NYS loaning multi-million dollar equipment to Ontario this spring for a week.

 

from what i've read, there's only a 2% survival rate on the salmon spawn in the Lake O tribs (approximate number of course)... if they stopped stocking... there will not be very many fish coming into the streams... but from the year they had on the lake this year, you would think the run would be pretty good, with a lot of big fish entering the rivers...

 

Salmon are migratory, just because fish are caught off Port Credit in July doesn't mean they won't be across the lake in September. There's lot's of big fish entering rivers.......just not in Ontario. That 2% number has been bandied about for 20 years, and now is generally thought to be way off. Don't forget that's also including fish stocked in rivers that have ZERO reproduction (i.e. chinooks in the Credit are not allowed above the Streetsville dam, essentially reducing their chances of spawning to nil, and I don't think there's too many spawning infront of the Burlington Lift Bridge). Here's a link to a 2005 MNR funded study that's part of the current research into reproduction, in the rivers out East there's ALOT of reproduction happening. But even in the best case over half the fish returning are stocked fish..........returning to rivers where NONE were stocked. Those mystery fish have to be coming from somewhere, and it sure as heck isn't Ontario hatcheries......errrr hatchery.

 

http://www.zoo.utoronto.ca/lakeontario/research.htm

 

 

The man is correct....I was out east at the end of August and couldn't believe how many fish were in one of the tribs. Best part is there was only a handfull of guys on the river. It was like Salmon paradise...thick runs of fresh fish, pools all to yourself, and fishing in a tank top.... Word got around fast ,cause within a week and a half there weren't many left

 

So one run of fish and a few days of decent fishing over five weeks is a good season to you? Off Bronte there's only been three days of decent fishing in the last five weeks, usually only the 3-4 hours it takes for a run to work itself past the pier and up the river. The rest of the time it's a vast desert wasteland, if there's two fish landed in the entire harbour all night that's a good night. Credit isn't doing any better, Oshawa is barren compared to the last two years, I got lucky at Dalhousie and caught one run but the rest of time I haven't seen a single fish landed.......usually at dawn even if you weren't catching anything there would be atleast fish surfacing SOMEWHERE on the horizon. Instead it's just a vast open barren lake. There's a few fish trickling in here & there but the East & West runs are pretty much over, and it's been a sad sad season any way you cut it. Dalhousie is still going to pick up in the next week or two, but I'm not expecting much. That pretty much leaves the Niagara, which are all Yankee fish.

[kemper]

Credit isn't doing any better, Oshawa is barren compared to the last two years,

 

I had a night where between 5 people at the mouth over 25 salmon were hooked (Floating Skein)

 

And although Im not in Oshawa anymore I have heard from buddies of mine that there is still hot fishing at night (like 2 am night)

 

Which leads me to think that there is still some fish that have yet to run.

 

Fish oshawa often?

 

We have probably run into each other at some point

[MCTFisher9120]

2) it starts the "SALMON DONT BITE IN THE RIVER" argument, with the poster of the pics getting flamed to no end.

 

Is that true, lol. I have not heard that before.

[xrap]

There's lots of salmon down at the wp, they were jumpign liek crazy last time

[Wild]

I checked out the mouth of etobicoke creek just for the halibut and did see a nice sized salmon porpoising around on the shady side, went up to the old dam and figured I would see a few. Oh well that was a waste of time

 

well until two chicks flashed me on the path --- WOOHOOO!

 

when I returned to where the salmon was it was already on it's side and gasping it's last few breaths, all that and ready to die alone without doing the nasty?

 

Awwww

 

 

Oh and is the salmon run over? Naw give it more time.

[kemper]

Is that true, lol. I have not heard that before.

 

Well im risking starting a cage match in a thread that is going fairly well so Ill try to keep both sides happy in explaining.

 

YES AND NO is the answer.

 

A fish that is fresh into the river (ie, the one that you caught) will readily take bait. The only question in that is whether it is biting out of hunger to actually consume the bait or biting out of instinct. Some say that salmon will hit eggs just to destroy them so their own young have a better chance of survival (personally I dont believe this theory).

 

Salmon that are decaying/dead and USUALLY not going to bite anything (and why would we want them to?) These fish are spawned out and likely near the end of their life. Catching them would probably kill them anyways.

 

General consensus is that fresh fish will hit FOR SURE in the lower sections of the river, why they hit and if they are actually eating is left to be debated. Fish that are not fresh/decaying/spawned out USUALLY will not hit, although I have landed many Chinooks in late october early november that are pretty beat up and have hit roe patterns. Also, if you are in clear water and you can sneak up on a salmon in a shallow run (PLEASE dont do this to a spawning pair) toss an unweighted pink worm or white worm into the water above it and watch what happens when it gets to the salmon. THEN tell me that salmon in the tribs dont bite. [this only works if the fish isnt spooked and you can manage to see it without it seeing you]

 

Seriously try it, its wicked cool to watch a salmon SLAM a bait in shallow water, just becareful because its easy to snag/line a fish in low water and that is not something you want to do (I Hope). If you are testing my theory please watch your line and get the hook the hell out of there if it looks like you are going to end up with a snagged fish.

[MCTFisher9120]

Well im risking starting a cage match in a thread that is going fairly well so Ill try to keep both sides happy in explaining.

 

YES AND NO is the answer.

 

A fish that is fresh into the river (ie, the one that you caught) will readily take bait. The only question in that is whether it is biting out of hunger to actually consume the bait or biting out of instinct. Some say that salmon will hit eggs just to destroy them so their own young have a better chance of survival (personally I dont believe this theory).

 

Salmon that are decaying/dead and USUALLY not going to bite anything (and why would we want them to?) These fish are spawned out and likely near the end of their life. Catching them would probably kill them anyways.

 

General consensus is that fresh fish will hit FOR SURE in the lower sections of the river, why they hit and if they are actually eating is left to be debated. Fish that are not fresh/decaying/spawned out USUALLY will not hit, although I have landed many Chinooks in late october early november that are pretty beat up and have hit roe patterns. Also, if you are in clear water and you can sneak up on a salmon in a shallow run (PLEASE dont do this to a spawning pair) toss an unweighted pink worm or white worm into the water above it and watch what happens when it gets to the salmon. THEN tell me that salmon in the tribs dont bite. [this only works if the fish isnt spooked and you can manage to see it without it seeing you]

 

Seriously try it, its wicked cool to watch a salmon SLAM a bait in shallow water, just becareful because its easy to snag/line a fish in low water and that is not something you want to do (I Hope). If you are testing my theory please watch your line and get the hook the hell out of there if it looks like you are going to end up with a snagged fish.

 

Im not sure if i will try it this year but possibily next year. Thanks for the info:) .

[Guest Fishing For Life]

It is interesting to see people who have flamed me before admit that they salmon fish in tribs too ... Wow, what a shocker ..

 

thought I have been the only sinner on this board ..

 

Cheers,