Another 40 lb from Lake - Year of the PIGS

[siwash]

Well, almost - 39.9lb today off the Scarborough Bluffs

 

This is like the 1980's all over again

 

 

Gotta be the best salmon fishery in the world

[alexcba]

daaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn!

[l2p]

man looks like i know where ill be casting spoons this fall. all the big ones coming right off the bluffs, which is 2 mins down the street. i was just there watching the thunderstorm actually.

[bucktail]

Wow thats crazy, remember a few years ago when the board was full of 25's.

Goes to show you how the ris and fall of the alewifes make alll the difference, bam...one severe winter and there numbers plummet and the salmon are small again.

Excellent example of a changing biosphere!

Looks like that 50 might be coming , a pound a week and there is 7 weeks left.

[BillsTheBassMan]

Are any of these fish going back to the lake or is everybody just keeping them?

[splashhopper]

whoaaahhh

[Sketty55]

40lb's, nice!! Its hard to believe how many GTA fisherman keep forgetting about the Bluffs.

[Paully]

Are any of these fish going back to the lake or is everybody just keeping them?

 

dead in a cooler or dead on a river bank.. not much differance

[BillsTheBassMan]

dead in a cooler or dead on a river bank.. not much differance

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to keeping the odd salmon, but I think it is a dangerous myth that every salmon caught has no chance of surviving, so you might as well just keep it. This is just simply not the case.

 

Regardless, it would be great to see Lake O remain "hot action lake" for years to come, as opposed to going the way of the dodo (ie Owen Sound).

 

Cheers to the American stocking program regardless.

[rhare]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to keeping the odd salmon, but I think it is a dangerous myth that every salmon caught has no chance of surviving, so you might as well just keep it. This is just simply not the case.

 

Regardless, it would be great to see Lake O remain "hot action lake" for years to come, as opposed to going the way of the dodo (ie Owen Sound).

 

Cheers to the American stocking program regardless.

 

 

 

Many salmon are caught and released everyday on Lake O. Most of the guys fishing the derby are well aware that only fish over 33lbs are going to have any potential of staying on the board and anything else goes back in the lake. The number of fish between 27-31lbs this year is unreal.

 

Cheers should be given to the MEA ( Metro East Anglers ) who took over operation of the ringwood hatchery 4 years ago. These volunteer's who do it purely for the love of fishing spend countless hours on the river collecting eggs and milk from the best genetics lake O has to offer. In the hatchery, incubating and raising the fish, cleaning and maintaining the hatchery, raising funds to buy food and equipment to keep the program running. These are the same people who started pen projects on the North shore to hold and feed the salmon and imprint them to return. Unlike the MNR who dumped them off the peirs in the middle of the day only to be eaten up by feeding birds.

The extra food that the the salmon receive in the pens makes them into little eating machines! They are much larger and have a way better chance of surviving in the lake. The proof is in the pudding. The amount of clipped shakers from 6" to 21" in the lake is crazy.

 

When the US couldnt make there stocking quota this year the MEA and volunteers drove our surplus chinooks to the Niagara river and stocked them to help out. It truly is a collective program and the US deserves a lot of credit for helping keep lake O a world class fishery, but I without a doubt believe we can thank the ringwood volunteers for the amazing fishing the next 4 years will hold!

 

tightlines

 

Ryan

[BillM]

dead in a cooler or dead on a river bank.. not much differance

 

How many fish in those coolers had a chance to spawn?

[siwash]

Even if plenty are kept, it's a healthy fishery.. beleive me the catch rates don't impact the fishery.. rather, its the ability of the alewife to stay helthy and strong that determine how many big ones we get each yer.

[Paully]

How many fish in those coolers had a chance to spawn?

 

None..

 

You never kept a fish bill?

[BillM]

None..

 

You never kept a fish bill?

 

Of course, but don't compare keeping a fish out in the lake to finding a dead black boot on a riverbank

Edited July 20, 2010 by BillM

[dannyboy]

How many fish in those coolers had a chance to spawn?

 

From what I have learned as far as salmon (excepting Atlantics I guess) in Lake Ontario go they are put and take and will not viably reproduce.

They are Pacific salmon introduced purely for sport fishing, and it is a healthy sport fishery that enable the stocking programs in the US and Canada both through volunteer and government actions.

 

Dan

Edited July 20, 2010 by dannyboy

[esoxansteel]

Keep the chinooks be nice to the bows and hos.

[siwash]

From what I have learned as far as salmon (excepting Atlantics I guess) in Lake Ontario go they are put and take and will not viably reproduce.

They are Pacific salmon introduced purely for sport fishing, and it is a healthy sport fishery that enable the stocking programs in the US and Canada both through volunteer and government actions.

 

Dan

 

 

Lots of natural reproduction.. tons more than people realize

[Paully]

Lots of natural reproduction.. tons more than people realize

 

Im all ears.. i actually agree with dannyboy.

 

I've always been under the same impression that successful spawning was not common..unless you can tell me otherwise.

Edited July 21, 2010 by Shore_Lunch

[Ben_Daniels]

Hearing about all these 40's is making me think I should invest in some real Salmon pier chucking gear!

 

-Ben

[canadadude]

Im all ears.. i actually agree with dannyboy.

 

I've always been under the same impression that successful spawning was not common..unless you can tell me otherwise.

New York State has a different view, natural reproduction of Chinnok comprises up to 70% of the returns on the Salmon River. Hence they have scaled back there anual stocking to 1.7 million fish.Atlantics are way more of a put and take fishery then the Pacifics

 

The biggest factor to the demise of the Huron fishery is the colapse of the baitfish populations.One theory out there is that when stocking Salmon was done no attention was given to natural reproduction hence an overpopulation of salmon contributed to the baitfish colapse.This is one reason natural reproduction of pacific salmon in Lake Ontario is being closely studied to prevent a baitfish colapse

Edited July 22, 2010 by canadadude

[Aaron Shirley]

It has been a great year for Lake Ontario kings! Tons of bait and big fish. It's great to see such a rebound of bait and big kings again. It's been a while since we've had a year like this!

 

This is the year to get out and enjoy the salmon fishing. Don't forget to buy a GOSD derby ticket!

Edited July 22, 2010 by Aaron Shirley

[smally21]

great numbers! what kind of depths are we talking if you dont mind? i know the area over the drop off is about 100 feet just wondering what depths the fish are hanging in.

[fishinguypat]

lets hope this spawning season these big fish can spawn successfully and not have there eggs taken?

[john from craa]

The myth that Pacific salmon cannot reproduce in the Great Lakes has been perpetuated by many in the past (including a few TV hosts), but the concrete evidence they do indeed spawn in the wild has been growing since the 1980's. NY first found wild chinook fry in a few tribs in the early 1980's, but reproduction was limited. Fish have been adapting and baitfish changes have permitted fish to overcome the thiamine problem caused by alewife.

 

While the Lake Ontario fishery still relys heavily on stocked chinook, studies done on Lake Ontario salmon estimate between 40 to 70% are in fact, wild fish. The adipose clipping program that started with the 2007 year class of chinook (stocked in May 2008) will answer this once and for all. MNR and DEC are studying the clip rates as we speak. Every chinook stocked since the 2007 (May 2008 stocking) year class is to be adipose clipped). Last year CRAA's creel of 2007 chinooks (shakers in 09) showed 46% wild, 54% clipped. This year from the creel we are running about 55% wild, 45% clipped for fish under 10 lbs.

 

NYSDEC estimates the Salmoln River alone produces between 4-10 million wild chinook fry! This exceeds NY and Ontario's stocking combined. However, as was noted above, NY has not changed their chinook stocking rates since 1995. The recent NY stocking was down due to a poor egg hatch and MEA shared 100k extra fry they had.

 

By 2012 we will have a much better understanding of wild and hatchery chinook and also which rivers they spawn successfully in. Most eastern GTA rivers have no stocking, but have solid runs of presumably wild chinooks. They also produce huge numbers of wild chinook fry, but MNR is so late sampling they miss the majority. Chinook parr leave rivers in May-June of the same spring they hatch (hatch is April-May). Most sampling starts in August with MNR. Only the minority chinooks that stay for the summer or a whole year are found in samples. Trout, Atlantic and coho juveniles tend to live in their natal river for two years before heading to the lake.

 

The bottom line is wild chinook are very important, so are hatchery chinook. But balancing the numbers of adult chinook in relation to bait is the key for the future. The past two years have been equal to the best ever catch rates based on NYSDEC creel surveys that go back to 1984 (this goes for chinook and steelhead). And more and more lake anglers are releasing their catch, or using selective harvest! Eating a few salmon or a clipped steelhead can make a great meal. But letting wild steelhead swim and releasing many chinook and coho is the way to go with high catch rates to give the fish an opportunity to survive. Catch and release works very well if the fish are kept in the water (max 20-30 seconds out of water is best for survival). Chinooks caught and tagged in the lake are reported around the lake in fall spawning and CRAA's tagged steelhead that have been caught in the lake also return to the Credit the following year.

 

It is a world class fishery where anglers can land tyee chinook, huge steelhead and now even some Atlantic salmon, all within a few km of the CN tower.

 

The Georgian Bay-Huron chinook fishery crashed for multiple reasons, but the leading suspect is the combination of a baitfish crash (due to cold winters and zebra muscles reducing plankton...food for alewives) and massive natural reproduction that was not monitored or managed for. The Nottawasaga River was never, never stocked with salmon. But by 1995 it had a small but decent run of kings (few thousand). But the 1997-8 year class blew the doors off. The runs in 99-01 were well into 5 figures, possibly well over 30,000 fish. I went from hitting the odd chinook on float gear from 92-98 to 50-80 fish mornings float fishing the lower river (99-04). Crazy! Fish size dropped from 20-30 lbs to 8-12 pounds, then fish looked starved and the runs crashed all over in 05-06 era. Michigan DEC and MNR studies showed 85-96% of the Huron-Gbay chinooks were wild in 2001-2004. Fishing was great, but declining by 04 and by 06 was downright poor for salmon. In the 90's we rarely caught chinooks off Meaford-Collingwood until the middle of August. By 2002-04, 10-15 chinooks in the boat in July was common per trip.

 

I hear lake fishing has been slightly better in Gbay and Huron this year from the past four years. So lets hope the bait and fish are recovering. On a positive note, perch numbers have rebounded and so have herring in Gbay/Huron. Maybe a shift in bait fish has occured? The studies continue.

 

Good fishing! And take some time out and voluneer for a club like CRAA, MEA, Ontario Steelheaders, etc.

 

John

[Pigeontroller]

John, thanks for the informative post.