More Brownies

[CLofchik]

That is incorrect. All license fees and fines and fees attributed to angling and/or violations of angling go to the MNR Special Purpose Fund. The MNR is the only Ministry with such a fund.

 

Only the province has been withholding budget funds at a higher exchange rate than what the Special Purpose Fund adds. For every fishing license dollar that adds to the MNR fish & wildlife budget, the province has withdrawn around $1.38 of provincial funding. So from a high (adjusted for inflation) of around $100Mil in 1992, funded without license fees, the fish & wildlife budget is now around $72mil. $60Mil from the Special Purpose Fund, $12Mil from the province.

 

Saying "every dollar from fishing & hunting licenses goes back into the MNR" is paper pushing semantics when you simply take more money away from other areas.

 

I agree with every point except the atlantics. I share some of your skepticism, but the "hundreds" you're talking about are just a preliminary figure and comprised mostly of jacks, or "grilse." You won't see much more than that for at least a couple years, and wouldn't even if they stocked 4 million: most of the fish just haven't reached maturity yet.

 

How many hundreds of thousands of smolts have been stocked every year for the last two decades with NOTHING to show for it?

 

So now we've gone to yearlings, and again we have to wait & see.

 

When can we as anglers finally say the entire Atlantic program is nothing but smoke & mirrors that only exists because of various agendas driving it?

[john from craa]

Wow! If half this energy was put forth to rehab streams, plant trees, lift fish and protect our rivers we might have more fish to catch and be too busy fishing and not spend our time typing away on chat boards. 8 pages!

 

Like Louis, I have to jump in. Craig - good to see you keeping busy. You should drop by and see some chromers on the Credit - they are sweet. Every night at 5 pm if Mother Nature keeps it warm. Beer in the fridge (don't tell Louis).

 

I am also one of those back in the day steelheaders, and have caught steel all over the Great Lakes, West Coast and salar on various Great Lakes and East Coast. However I support Atlantic salmon.

 

For the record, there were 49 grilse lifted and confirmed at Streetsvile (pretty close to 50). 34 were transported to the headwaters. There were reports of a few larger fish, plus other grilse from the lower river not included in the 49. Not a lot, but a good start.

 

Atlantic stocking numbers rhetoric:

 

The vast majority of the one million Atlantic's stocked thus far were stocked as fry (about 750,000). About 200,000 fingerlings and only 60,000 yearlings. Why is this important? 1 smolt equals about 20 fingerlings and 100 fry. So in reality at a yearling (smolt) equivelent only 77,500 +/- have been stocked, divided by 3 years equals 25,000 per year. The partnerships production for more fish is just kicking into high gear in 2009.

 

Some comparables:

 

MNR stocked roughly 60,000 to 120,000 coho yearlings annualy to produce a run of 1000-1500 adults in the Credit in recent years.

MNR stocks an average 25,000 yearling steelhead to the Credit each year - return is roughly 600-1,000 fish per year (this has five year classes making up the total or 120 to 200 fish from each years stocking).

MNR stocks an annual average of 150,000 brown trout yearlings each year (6 times Atlantic stocking rate) - Only 12 fin clipped brown trout returned to the Streetsville fishway last year. How many clipped browns did you catch from the 150 k.

Credit was stocked with roughly 25,000 Atlantic yearling equivelents (2005 year class) to produce a return of 50 grilse.

 

You cannot compare stocking one million Atlantics (750,000 as fry) to 200,000 yearling steelhead or 150,000 yearling browns. It is an apples to oranges comparison.

 

Pennsylvania stocks between 600,000 and 1.2 million steelhead smolts every year to create their cookie cutter steelhead fishery. NY stocks 50-100 K into one Erie trib alone to make a run - but much of the run is made up from Penn strays.

 

Atlantic stocking is funded outside the MNR, not with tax dollars, but with third party money - so no loss to MNR's budget. Yet some of those dollars and support are helping all the other salmonids. As Louis stated, the Norval fishway is within our grasp and salar is key to helping speed the process up. That ladder will be a shot in the arm for wild steelhead and browns too!

 

Quanlity vs. quantity - is stocking the answer?

 

The last time I fished Pennsylvania was November 1994. I had 50 hot chromers in the first pool of the creek, all between 6-8 pounds. 3 pound tippet (pre dates florocarbon), longest fight - 60 seconds, longest run - 20 feet. I left the river and swore never to return to fish for lazy, weak cookie cutters. I have not been back since.

 

I did enjoy the late run on the NY trib Craig and I shared several times in the late 90's as they had some muscle, but I would gladly take 5 Credit or Notty chromers over 50 of those fish. The other day I had a 5 pound buck in the Credit jump 8 times and take me down the river 300 feet - and I had 8.8 pound tippet on. Or the 15 pound buck the day before that kicked my ass for 10 minutes. Or the hot chromer a buddy had last week that walked him 400 yards down and kissed him goodbye. Some of our big rivers are blessed with strong fish, but over harvest and lack of access to spawning grounds are the hurdles to good fishing.

 

Steelhead Genetic divergence?

 

Most wild Great Lakes Steelhead have divereged. Wild Credit steelhead are genetically different than the stockers and they have only had 20-30 years to change. Notty and Bighead steelies are also divergent down to the tributary according to genetic studies done. North shore Superior steelhead - divergent. I do totally agree with Craig that even MNR's stocking should be done from wild returns, not 4th generation brood stock, but I feel managing our wild fish to prevent over harvest is more important.

 

The Coaster

 

Since I am the guy who took the pic posted here - my 2 cents. I did ask the brookie where it came from, but it just looked at me like I was an alien - not sure why? The brookie was in the top end of the Streetsville fishway with a pack of big chinooks. It had to jump over 5 - 12-18" jumps going upstream to get where it was caught. It did not pass down, unless it squeezed through the 1" square steel screen. So, could it be a resident that dropped down and went back up - highly unlikely - it was the middle of September. Temperatures two weeks prior in the river had been above the lethal level for brookies far above the ladder. It is also not the first one ever reported in the Credit and many have been reported lake wide. In 20 years of MNR and CVC shocking no brookie even close to that size has been caught in the upper Credit. My bet - lake run - only way to get that big and be where he was.

 

And finally - the first pic - The picture quality is not clear enough to say 100%. My bet - it was a brown, but 10% of me says Atlantic too. The tail is slightly forked, the caudle peduncle is thin, the dorsal is sloped more and the head is more pointed, but the maxillary passes the eye and the base of the tail starts like a brown. Nonetheless, it is a tough call. We had a brown at the Streetsville fishway that was also a very difficult call. When asked if he was a brown or Atlantic the fish replied "certainly not sir, I'm a tarpon"

 

Have fun and give a little back to your favourite fishery. With only 12 million dollars for MNR funding through tax dollars the MNR staff need our help!

 

John

President of CRAA

[Zubris21]

Just another point...

 

I personally would GLADLY pay an extra 40 or 50 bucks a year for a fishing license if it meant greater stocking in the great lakes of salmon and trout...and I wonder how many others would do that same?

 

Interesting you should note this....

 

Out here in BC the licensing is completely different. Standard non-tidal fishing license cost $36, however this does not give you the privileged of fishing steelhead, for that you must also purchase a species tag for I believe an additional $25. Even with this additional species tag, you are still not permitted to fish all waters, the most productive waters are considered "classified waters" and are most important to the survival of the species and fisheries. In order to fish these waters you must purchase a classified waters license for an additional cost (again in the $20-25 range). Even with these licenses you are only allowed to retain 10 hatchery steelhead/year, all wild fish must be released. Sturgeon also works the same way, but I am less familiar with them as they are only found much farther south than I am.

 

As for salmon your standard non-tidal license gives you permission to fish for them, however if you intend to keep any of your catch you must purchase a salmon tag for an additional $15, and even with this the regs dictate quota's for the rivers. Of the runs in our local river which include sockeye, pink, coho, chum, and chinook, I only have the priviledge to keep a couple adult chinnys.

 

All total my license this year cost me $80, $36 for the standard, $25 for the steelies, and $15 for the salmon. Likely I will need to purchase classified waters as well, as I think I will head down to the Skeena/Kalum rivers to try for some world class steelies in may.

 

TO be honest, I didn't have any problem paying this as I know the money is spent well. I have been working fairly closely with our local fisheries person, as I have set up a Sockeye raising project for one of my classes. I will post pictures at some point for everyone to see.

[siwash]

So what is the purpose then? If returns and angling success are no factor what so ever then why are OUR tax dollars going towards a program thats whole purpose is to bring back a fish that was unable and has been unable to sustain its self for decadeds.???

 

Sounds like a feelgood news story if you ask me, money could be much better spent cleaning up the lake or stocking more successful sport fish.

Our stocking progam is dismal when compared to the US program. Thank god they spend money on more then just unsuccessful programs

 

 

"cleaning up the lake" is gonna require a lot more money tha they throw at this atlantic program...

 

 

i'm also on the fence... lots of people have bashed the re-introduction attempt but I've heard that atlantics are amazing fighters... let me re-phrase that... i know they are from a some limited experience. A few yrs ago I was fishing in my favourite creek targeting specks and browns. It's a river that has received alot of the atlantics over the years. Well, on this day I ended up hooking and mostly landing at least 15 to 20 atlantics... small but incredibly fiesty.. fought like 3 lb fish but they were only 9-11 inchs long. They were silver bullets, jumping clear out of the water... just a blast to catch and a lot mre fun than catching the brookies nd browns, quite frankly.. it was a memorable day and regrettably i haven no pics to prove this! But anyone who's familiar with the stocking program proably has an idea as to where I was fishing.. I did catch a few more the following year, ut I haven't returned to the spot the past two yrs..will be back this year for sure, with a camera

 

all were released.. i wonder how many survived and made it to the lake...?

[River Rat]

you can dump all the smolts in the breakwalls you want....Johns numbers are proof that it doesn't work. Penn raising is the best way to imprint and have a higher rate of return. The charter boys out east lake O are taking matters into thier own hands. The MNR stocks 25,000 chinnies off the bowmanville harbour boat launch every year. This year they have approval to take 5,000 of these smolts and leave em in a penn that they guys got together to fund and build. If the motality rate stays low, next year they are penning 10,000.

 

It has been proven up and down the north shore of lake O that penn raising works. The penns for Port Darlington cost $800 each to build. The return numbers of the 5,000 fish will be monitored of course but the return rate is stagering as compared to breakwall dumping. The fish survival rate, size on return and over all quality is also un matched by any "dump smolt" efforts we have seen so far.

 

The problem: we need more dedicated volenteers. These penns have to be monitored daily for water temp and disolved oxygen levels. Automatic feeders need to be filled and serviced daily and morts removed and logged daily.

 

I'm not a huge fan of the chinnies. In my perfect world we would be hooking wild bows, Altlantics and browns all day long like we did back in the 80"s (bows n browns anyway) but it ain't gonna happen without tons of volenteers with strategic plans regarding stream re-had, and penn rearing. The charter boys need the chinn dogs to make a living. That is why they have gotten of thier ass'es and done something to protect thier fishery. That's why I have volenteered to help out....I know that this project will work because the people running it have something to lose.

 

I get my Atlantics fix a couple times a year and I travel very far to get it. It would be great to see them in my local water but without the volenteer groups and penn raising, I just can't see it happening.

 

I'll leave you with a fact that may help us all see the bigger problem: three years ago, stout fellow.NET group got together with the CLOCA people and organized and Oshawa creek clean up......we dragged out 32 shopping carts and litterally TONS of debris from hypdermic needles to fire extinguishers, bikes...bags, timmies cupps, water bottles...you name it..........the next year we cleaned out 27 new shopping carts from the same stretch of river and whatever else we could find.....we skipped a season so I can'timagine what she will look like this year.

 

We have more problems than just stocking isues and return rates.

 

RR

[siwash]

you can dump all the smolts in the breakwalls you want....Johns numbers are proof that it doesn't work. Penn raising is the best way to imprint and have a higher rate of return. The charter boys out east lake O are taking matters into thier own hands. The MNR stocks 25,000 chinnies off the bowmanville harbour boat launch every year. This year they have approval to take 5,000 of these smolts and leave em in a penn that they guys got together to fund and build. If the motality rate stays low, next year they are penning 10,000.

 

It has been proven up and down the north shore of lake O that penn raising works. The penns for Port Darlington cost $800 each to build. The return numbers of the 5,000 fish will be monitored of course but the return rate is stagering as compared to breakwall dumping. The fish survival rate, size on return and over all quality is also un matched by any "dump smolt" efforts we have seen so far.

 

The problem: we need more dedicated volenteers. These penns have to be monitored daily for water temp and disolved oxygen levels. Automatic feeders need to be filled and serviced daily and morts removed and logged daily.

 

I'm not a huge fan of the chinnies. In my perfect world we would be hooking wild bows, Altlantics and browns all day long like we did back in the 80"s (bows n browns anyway) but it ain't gonna happen without tons of volenteers with strategic plans regarding stream re-had, and penn rearing. The charter boys need the chinn dogs to make a living. That is why they have gotten of thier ass'es and done something to protect thier fishery. That's why I have volenteered to help out....I know that this project will work because the people running it have something to lose.

 

I get my Atlantics fix a couple times a year and I travel very far to get it. It would be great to see them in my local water but without the volenteer groups and penn raising, I just can't see it happening.

 

I'll leave you with a fact that may help us all see the bigger problem: three years ago, stout fellow.NET group got together with the CLOCA people and organized and Oshawa creek clean up......we dragged out 32 shopping carts and litterally TONS of debris from hypdermic needles to fire extinguishers, bikes...bags, timmies cupps, water bottles...you name it..........the next year we cleaned out 27 new shopping carts from the same stretch of river and whatever else we could find.....we skipped a season so I can'timagine what she will look like this year.

 

We have more problems than just stocking isues and return rates.

 

RR

 

 

 

Interesting.. so ha this been proven scientifically or is it anecdotal? BTW, why don't you think the chinny is worth stocking? What makes browns that much more appealing? they certainly don't fight as well as a king... And if my memory serves me correctly, the Chinny was king in the 80s! size and numbers were outstanding and 40+ were caught annually. It was a true trophy fishery back then.., just my humble opinion!

[wallacio]

you can dump all the smolts in the breakwalls you want....Johns numbers are proof that it doesn't work. Penn raising is the best way to imprint and have a higher rate of return. The charter boys out east lake O are taking matters into thier own hands. The MNR stocks 25,000 chinnies off the bowmanville harbour boat launch every year. This year they have approval to take 5,000 of these smolts and leave em in a penn that they guys got together to fund and build. If the motality rate stays low, next year they are penning 10,000.

 

It has been proven up and down the north shore of lake O that penn raising works. The penns for Port Darlington cost $800 each to build. The return numbers of the 5,000 fish will be monitored of course but the return rate is stagering as compared to breakwall dumping. The fish survival rate, size on return and over all quality is also un matched by any "dump smolt" efforts we have seen so far.

 

The problem: we need more dedicated volenteers. These penns have to be monitored daily for water temp and disolved oxygen levels. Automatic feeders need to be filled and serviced daily and morts removed and logged daily.

 

I'm not a huge fan of the chinnies. In my perfect world we would be hooking wild bows, Altlantics and browns all day long like we did back in the 80"s (bows n browns anyway) but it ain't gonna happen without tons of volenteers with strategic plans regarding stream re-had, and penn rearing. The charter boys need the chinn dogs to make a living. That is why they have gotten of thier ass'es and done something to protect thier fishery. That's why I have volenteered to help out....I know that this project will work because the people running it have something to lose.

 

I get my Atlantics fix a couple times a year and I travel very far to get it. It would be great to see them in my local water but without the volenteer groups and penn raising, I just can't see it happening.

 

I'll leave you with a fact that may help us all see the bigger problem: three years ago, stout fellow.NET group got together with the CLOCA people and organized and Oshawa creek clean up......we dragged out 32 shopping carts and litterally TONS of debris from hypdermic needles to fire extinguishers, bikes...bags, timmies cupps, water bottles...you name it..........the next year we cleaned out 27 new shopping carts from the same stretch of river and whatever else we could find.....we skipped a season so I can'timagine what she will look like this year.

 

We have more problems than just stocking isues and return rates.

 

RR

 

 

RR it should be noted that parr/smolt survival from Atlantic plants in the Credit has been quite encouraging over the years. Fish are planted high in the nursery headwater area ie Forks of the Credit and based on counts, they are doing just fine. As someone who fishes up there all summer, I can personally attest to this fact as we catch little Atlantics all of the time while targetting Browns.

 

I'm glad to see some factual information posted by experts who have direct working knowledge with the program (ie John from CRAA) rather than just the typical bashing from the nay-sayers whose opinions are usually lacking in factual information. I'm cautiously optimistic about this program and hope that it is successful...if not, at the very least our local watersheds and naturalized salmonid populations will be better for it from all of the rehab work associated with the project.

[ehg]

Way back in the mid - 1980's i remember hitting into smolt Atlantics, not intentionally,while fishing bows in Wilmot.

Others were catching them as well. Was thinking that would lead to higher mortality from stresses of angling.

Still hitting Atlantics on tribs when brookie fishing headwaters. This has to be not good for them.

 

Maybe pen raising would help avoid some of this and bring more success to Atlantic re-introduction.

 

 

you can dump all the smolts in the breakwalls you want....Johns numbers are proof that it doesn't work. Penn raising is the best way to imprint and have a higher rate of return.

 

It has been proven up and down the north shore of lake O that penn raising works. The penns for Port Darlington cost $800 each to build. The return numbers of the 5,000 fish will be monitored of course but the return rate is stagering as compared to breakwall dumping. The fish survival rate, size on return and over all quality is also un matched by any "dump smolt" efforts we have seen so far.

[BillM]

Erik, that looks like a rainbow smolt to me...

 

Very similar to the ones I've caught while brookie fishing in the Notty headwaters.

 

[ehg]

Erik, that looks like a rainbow smolt to me...

 

Hey Bill, no offense but those fish i posted are 100% Atlantics.

Didn't want to catch them i wanted brookies, they were from Lake O trib headwaters.

[BillM]

No offense at all man, now I know what to look out for

[aniceguy]

Well,

 

Penn raising should only be an option with the chinooks in streams where access to rearing habitat is not an option such as an existing barrier, Port Dalhousie is an example, but with a viable fish ladder at Bowmanville IMO pen rearing shouldnt be done there and where stocked the practice of stocking and the specific location as laid out by LOMU should be re examined.

 

Any fish if pen reared is going to have a marked increase in its survivability. Remember thy Life History of a chinook differs from all other cold water fish, by spring of the following year they are gone back to the lake.

 

There are a few off the radar creeks on the N shore of Lake Ontario that do in fact recieve a run of a migratory brook trout. All of these fish are plactic in thier nature some more then others and as such will migrate out of a river environmentto a lake.

[BassAsin]

here in north bay we have a lake with you name it in there (large and smallmouth, pike,perch,walleye,suckers,smelt,specks,rainbows,lakers, musky,sturgeon sunfish rock bass and atlantics.) i'm sure i missed a few in there too but none the less the atlantics are now doing very well. what was once considered a "waste" of money is now a great fishery once their spawning grounds were cleaned/corrected for them, they reproduce naturally now and are caught by many anglers downrigging while the season is open for a week in the summer. once considered a waste of time is now a great success which is putting back to the lake. as for spending the money on rainbows or coho's instead i dont think theres a need for that, judging by the posts on this site there are ample bows in the great lakes anyway,

 

 

 

Nice report, them are some good lookin fish browns atlantics whatever they may be good work. looks like you have no motor on the boat from them pictures!

 

Matt!

[CLofchik]

 

 

No offense at all man, now I know what to look out for

 

The easiest way to tell a parr Atlantic from everything else is their head.

See how large the eye is compared to the size of fish and small mouth with a jaw that doesn't close past the eye.

 

Atlantic.