Salmon and Lake Trout Stocking Reductions for 2017

[PUMP KNOWS]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 20, 2016 by PUMP KNOWS

[dave524]

Sounds good to me. I got into the game back when it was a Coho fishery in the seventies, I believe the first real decent run of Chinook was the fall of 82. Coho are far better on the table and an infinitely better sport fish when they hit the creeks in the fall for those that like that sort of thing. Browns are available shorecasting here from ice out into June and than again from now to winter both along the shore and in the creeks providing opportunities for the angler without a boat, like me now. Only the stocking levels of Chinook are being dropped in response to the alewife situation, makes sense.

[esoxansteel]

Sounds good to me. I got into the game back when it was a Coho fishery in the seventies, I believe the first real decent run of Chinook was the fall of 82. Coho are far better on the table and an infinitely better sport fish when they hit the creeks in the fall for those that like that sort of thing. Browns are available shorecasting here from ice out into June and than again from now to winter both along the shore and in the creeks providing opportunities for the angler without a boat, like me now. Only the stocking levels of Chinook are being dropped in response to the alewife situation, makes sense.

 

 

X 2 Coho are by far the better fish as you say, and will readily chase flies, lure etc in the river, and growing one half to one third the size of chinooks do not eat as many forage as Chinooks, also on the eastern tribs which have large runs naturally do to prime spawning waters, are not factored into the list which only contains stocking numbers in urban centres

[spincast]

I'd like to see the rainbow and lake trout #s switched. The Lake trout are already incredibly well established in some parts of the lake, and only getting more common. But unless the scientists come up with something to combat the mussels, I'm concerned the long term outlook for Lake Ontario will be similar to Lake Huron.

[fishindevil]

like dave524 says I remember the massive coho runs in the early 80's and for years they were awesome,and some did get very big as well as we won a few tourneys with coho...and they love to go airborne as well...great fighting fish and taste way better than a dirty old boot,and would be interesting to hear what they will do with this ...anyone have info on new York state as well as Michigan on stocking numbers??

Edited September 21, 2016 by fishindevil

[craigdritchie]

Interesting slide show, thanks for posting it. Interesting that MNR doesn't feel that reducing the number of Atlantic salmon stocked would have any impact whatsoever, in spite of the fact they continue pouring 700,000 of the things into Lake O every year. Could this finally be an admission that the stupid things just don't survive and contribute to the fishery? I doubt it.

 

 

Sounds good to me. I got into the game back when it was a Coho fishery in the seventies, I believe the first real decent run of Chinook was the fall of 82. Coho are far better on the table and an infinitely better sport fish when they hit the creeks in the fall for those that like that sort of thing. Browns are available shorecasting here from ice out into June and than again from now to winter both along the shore and in the creeks providing opportunities for the angler without a boat, like me now. Only the stocking levels of Chinook are being dropped in response to the alewife situation, makes sense.

 

First major return of chinook was in the fall of 1978, into Bronte Creek ... I remember writing about it, and going there to take photos. Bronte was selected as the stocking site because the MNR fisheries managers of the day thought they could better monitor the results by keeping the chinook separated from the then-booming coho run into the Credit. Of course that was back in the day when Bronte Creek actually had water in it ... long before the subdivisions and urban sprawl dropped the water table and led to the current microscopic water volumes in the creek.

 

 

 

 

 

X 2 Coho are by far the better fish as you say, and will readily chase flies, lure etc in the river, and growing one half to one third the size of chinooks do not eat as many forage as Chinooks, also on the eastern tribs which have large runs naturally do to prime spawning waters, are not factored into the list which only contains stocking numbers in urban centres

 

Agree 100% - coho are still a superior sport fish to chinook in every measurable way. Though they don't reach the same maximum size, IMHO coho outfight chinooks and are way more fun to catch. Even in the lake, chinnies are little more than carp with teeth, as a friend of mine says. It's nice they can pull line, but they don't jump and they don't turn and twist anything like a coho.

 

Unfortunately, it costs a lot more to raise coho in a hatchery than it does to raise chinook, and that's precisely why chinook are the focus of the salmon program today. They're cheaper.

 

 

like dave524 says I remember the massive coho runs in the early 80's and for years they were awesome,and some did get very big as well as we won a few tourneys with coho...and they love to go airborne as well...great fighting fish and taste way better than a dirty old boot,and would be interesting to hear what they will do with this ...anyone have info on new York state as well as Michigan on stocking numbers??

 

Back in the heyday of the coho program, on any given Saturday there would be 2,000 boats fishing for salmon between Toronto and Bronte. The derby used to attract 10,000 entrants, and hotels along the Lakeshore were booked solid through August and September. Tackle shops sold rods and reels and equipment by the carton. Boat dealers sold a ton of boats and engines. It was good, in spite of some economic uncertainty and interest rates being five times higher than they are right now.

 

Today, the number of boats out there is probably measured in the dozens. The derby survives, but it's not what it was. Hotels and tackle shops have closed due to lack of sales. Boat dealers aren't exactly flipping salmon boats like crazy either, despite financing rates at all-time lows.Yet there are more anglers in southern Ontario today than there were back then.

 

What does it tell you?

 

It tells me that Lake Ontario is being BADLY mismanaged. Every year they dump in hundreds of thousands of lakers that no one could care less about catching. They stock only a tiny number of browns, and spread the stocking so thin that they're basically never seen again. Coho plants have fallen through the floor, to a fraction of what they once stocked, and now they're put in at such a small size survival is pretty much zero. They still waste money and hatchery space on stocking hundreds of thousands of Atlantics every year, in spite of that program having been proven a complete failure 25 years ago. And for decades they've relied on natural reproduction to support the steelhead fishery (in both the rivers and the lake) in spite of overwhelming evidence it simply can't keep up.

 

Were it not for chinook, Lake O would be a complete and total wasteland.

 

If MNR wanted to actually provide a good fishery and get people out there the way they once were, they would save the small fortune they waste each year on greasers and Atlantics and use it to fund a serious coho program. Stock rainbows on a put-and-take basis into urban rivers to create fisheries there, and take pressure off wild fish. And concentrate their brown trout stocking so people have a chance to actually catch the things.

 

It's not rocket surgery. Yet all we ever hear are excuses after excuses.

Edited September 21, 2016 by Craig_Ritchie

[fishindevil]

excellent craig !!!!! perfectly put.....

[Sinker]

^ AMEN!!

 

S.

[fishindevil]

COHO ALL THE WAY ............and browns & steelhead....NO ATLANTICS...THATS A FAIL...

[AKRISONER]

Interesting slide show, thanks for posting it. Interesting that MNR doesn't feel that reducing the number of Atlantic salmon stocked would have any impact whatsoever, in spite of the fact they continue pouring 700,000 of the things into Lake O every year. Could this finally be an admission that the stupid things just don't survive and contribute to the fishery? I doubt it.

 

 

 

First major return of chinook was in the fall of 1978, into Bronte Creek ... I remember writing about it, and going there to take photos. Bronte was selected as the stocking site because the MNR fisheries managers of the day thought they could better monitor the results by keeping the chinook separated from the then-booming coho run into the Credit. Of course that was back in the day when Bronte Creek actually had water in it ... long before the subdivisions and urban sprawl dropped the water table and led to the current microscopic water volumes in the creek.

 

 

 

 

Agree 100% - coho are still a superior sport fish to chinook in every measurable way. Though they don't reach the same maximum size, IMHO coho outfight chinooks and are way more fun to catch. Even in the lake, chinnies are little more than carp with teeth, as a friend of mine says. It's nice they can pull line, but they don't jump and they don't turn and twist anything like a coho.

 

Unfortunately, it costs a lot more to raise coho in a hatchery than it does to raise chinook, and that's precisely why chinook are the focus of the salmon program today. They're cheaper.

 

 

 

Back in the heyday of the coho program, on any given Saturday there would be 2,000 boats fishing for salmon between Toronto and Bronte. The derby used to attract 10,000 entrants, and hotels along the Lakeshore were booked solid through August and September. Tackle shops sold rods and reels and equipment by the carton. Boat dealers sold a ton of boats and engines. It was good, in spite of some economic uncertainty and interest rates being five times higher than they are right now.

 

Today, the number of boats out there is probably measured in the dozens. The derby survives, but it's not what it was. Hotels and tackle shops have closed due to lack of sales. Boat dealers aren't exactly flipping salmon boats like crazy either, despite financing rates at all-time lows.Yet there are more anglers in southern Ontario today than there were back then.

 

What does it tell you?

 

It tells me that Lake Ontario is being BADLY mismanaged. Every year they dump in hundreds of thousands of lakers that no one could care less about catching. They stock only a tiny number of browns, and spread the stocking so thin that they're basically never seen again. Coho plants have fallen through the floor, to a fraction of what they once stocked, and now they're put in at such a small size survival is pretty much zero. They still waste money and hatchery space on stocking hundreds of thousands of Atlantics every year, in spite of that program having been proven a complete failure 25 years ago. And for decades they've relied on natural reproduction to support the steelhead fishery (in both the rivers and the lake) in spite of overwhelming evidence it simply can't keep up.

 

Were it not for chinook, Lake O would be a complete and total wasteland.

 

If MNR wanted to actually provide a good fishery and get people out there the way they once were, they would save the small fortune they waste each year on greasers and Atlantics and use it to fund a serious coho program. Stock rainbows on a put-and-take basis into urban rivers to create fisheries there, and take pressure off wild fish. And concentrate their brown trout stocking so people have a chance to actually catch the things.

 

It's not rocket surgery. Yet all we ever hear are excuses after excuses.

 

 

oh to live in the 70's and 80's where people could afford a house and a boat to drive.

 

total pipe dream for kids in their 20's and 30's to every even consider buying a boat, never mind a house as well. You guys had it better than you think, and dont give me some generational we worked harder than you Bull.

 

Ask around, i dont think theres one young guy on this forum that can afford a boat seaworthy of lake O unless its flat. trust me, id love to have a boat in my driveway that would allow me to fish the derby.

 

I bet Pump would love to have a nice big boat to get out on the lakes from...i consider myself very very lucky, im almost 30 and own a 14 foot tinner.

Edited September 21, 2016 by AKRISONER

[craigdritchie]

 

 

oh to live in the 70's and 80's where people could afford a house and a boat to drive.

 

total pipe dream for kids in their 20's and 30's to every even consider buying a boat, never mind a house as well. You guys had it better than you think, and dont give me some generational we worked harder than you Bull.

 

Ask around, i dont think theres one young guy on this forum that can afford a boat seaworthy of lake O unless its flat. trust me, id love to have a boat in my driveway that would allow me to fish the derby.

 

I bet Pump would love to have a nice big boat to get out on the lakes from...i consider myself very very lucky, im almost 30 and own a 14 foot tinner.

 

When I was a young man, buying a house was also a pipe dream ... the fact that interest rates at that time were at one point over 21% (as opposed to less than 4% today) didn't exactly help when it came to financing anything - homes, cars or boats. We had low-paying jobs and gobs of debt too.

 

Yet people went into hock for boats back then because the fishing on the big lake made it totally worth it.

 

Today? Not so much.

 

The economic impact of Lake Ontario's fishery decline would easily measure into the hundreds of millions ... if not more.

Edited September 21, 2016 by Craig_Ritchie

[Old Ironmaker]

A great thread for even this no longer Salmon fisherman, thanks.

[esoxansteel]

Craig always like when you put your 2 cents in on the Lake O fishery, as like many of us who have fished it for close to 40 years, and have seen the rise and fall, and know what is and isnt happening and what needs to happen,

 

Back in the late 70s through to 1983 Coho's did get large and up to and over 20 pounds, one strain in the 70s fooled most everyone myself included as they were late runners in fact very late runners, showing up in late Nov and Dec, i remember hooking 15 to 18 pounders on spoons off the Credit beakwall when i worked and lived in Port Credit, McCarthys Mill and the Cadet Dam were inendated with Coho's and they were suckers for white marabou jigs. Just like the Old File Factory Hole on the Ganny, which likely held steelhead every month of the year even July, arching Colorados from the high wall, towards the tailout on the east side would see drop back steelhead chase the spinner 30 to 40 feet in late June, and literally smash it, and 7 to10 jumps, and many times more from the long skinny fish were the norm. Fortunately we still have our memories to remember how great the Lake O fishery and its tribs were back then,

 

On another note, there seems to be a larger amount of Chinooks jumping with Lampreys in the Ganny, as many fish were in the River last Saturday and Sunday, and it was common to see Lampreys hanging off jumping Chinooks, unfortunately many times this fform of trying to rid Lampreys does not work, and often ends up been the demise of the fish, Credit Chinooks on the other hand use to rub themselfs on the breakwall, and pier, and rocks Lamprey side in and basically scrape the Lamprey off that way, which was more effective.

[dave524]

 

Fortunately we still have our memories to remember how great the Lake O fishery and its tribs were back then,

 

 

 

You are right about the late big Cohos, Still have the visions of a huge rosy sided buck Coho coming out of the water on hookset at the clay banks at Erindale one December morning with ice forming on the shore. About the same time , mid 80's, a 50 fish day the weekend after opener on the Ganny, somewhere up around Canton on a hydro rightaway, pool might have had 2 -300 dropbacks above a logjam waiting for a rain to get back to the lake, they were voracious.

[Freshtrax]

My boat caught 144 Chinook , 23 coho, 63 rainbow, 8 Browns and 1 Atlantic. in the last 2 years on Lake Ontario . Time to ditch the Atlantics. I like coho and rainbow but I find the chinooks the most predictable, and easiest to catch.

[dave524]

My boat caught 144 Chinook , 23 coho, 63 rainbow, 8 Browns and 1 Atlantic. in the last 2 years on Lake Ontario . Time to ditch the Atlantics. I like coho and rainbow but I find the chinooks the most predictable, and easiest to catch.

Must be fishing the north shore, I don't see any greasers in your total. Good going if you not including 1 pound shaker Chinnies . Want bows and cohos you need to hit 300 plus depths

Edited September 22, 2016 by dave524

[netminder]

 

 

oh to live in the 70's and 80's where people could afford a house and a boat to drive.

 

total pipe dream for kids in their 20's and 30's to every even consider buying a boat, never mind a house as well. You guys had it better than you think, and dont give me some generational we worked harder than you Bull.

 

Ask around, i dont think theres one young guy on this forum that can afford a boat seaworthy of lake O unless its flat. trust me, id love to have a boat in my driveway that would allow me to fish the derby.

 

I bet Pump would love to have a nice big boat to get out on the lakes from...i consider myself very very lucky, im almost 30 and own a 14 foot tinner.

I hate to pile on, taking this too far off topic, but I agree with this. My wife and I have good paying white collar jobs and no kids. We're 30 years old and we own a house but a decent boat (even a tinny) and truck for fishing is still a dream that's maybe 3-4 years away, if everything goes right.

 

But whatever though... different times, different lives. I just hope they get the lakes back to where they ought to be by the time I've bought my boat!

[Joeytier]

...am I the only one that would like to see them divert the millions of dollars spent on the meat-market fishery we have today instead spent on serious habitat restoration and revival of the native species of the area, everything from the dwindling Brook trout populations in the headwaters being taken over by browns and steelie/Atlantic smolts to naturally reproducing lake trout (I won't touch the Atlantic's issue). MNR has the potential to do something special, but I guess the meat wagons have too much at stake.

[John Bacon]

...am I the only one that would like to see them divert the millions of dollars spent on the meat-market fishery we have today instead spent on serious habitat restoration and revival of the native species of the area, everything from the dwindling Brook trout populations in the headwaters being taken over by browns and steelie/Atlantic smolts to naturally reproducing lake trout (I won't touch the Atlantic's issue). MNR has the potential to do something special, but I guess the meat wagons have too much at stake.

 

I am sure there are a few who agree with you. But most people, at least in regards to Lake Ontario, seem to want to go the opposite route. A lot of people want the MNR to move away from native species such as lake trout and Atlantics and stock more non-native coho, rainbows, browns, and Chinook.

 

 

[craigdritchie]

...am I the only one that would like to see them divert the millions of dollars spent on the meat-market fishery we have today instead spent on serious habitat restoration and revival of the native species of the area, everything from the dwindling Brook trout populations in the headwaters being taken over by browns and steelie/Atlantic smolts to naturally reproducing lake trout (I won't touch the Atlantic's issue). MNR has the potential to do something special, but I guess the meat wagons have too much at stake.

 

I see a couple of different issues where the Lake O system is concerned. Biggest one being, MNR has extremely limited budgets, and zero chance right now of seeing that change. That makes it tough because nothing - meat market fishery or rehab of native species - can happen without money.

 

To me, the put-and-take salmon fishery is the low-hanging fruit. It's obviously popular, and it's obviously the most visible. If MNR were to develop (or re-develop, I guess) a strong Lake O fishery centered on the GTA and built around coho, chinook, rainbows and browns, we would (1) have great fishing within sight of something like six million people, with (2) all sorts of economic activity that's clearly associated with it. When you have people buying tackle and boats and gas and licenses, it becomes impossible for the Ontario government to dispute that fishing creates jobs and contributes to their tax coffers in a serious way. It also brings a lot of new people into fishing, and they buy more licenses and spend more money on gear. And that brings in still more taxes. All this spending is what opens the door to MNR getting a little more clout with policy makers, and getting more budget to work with. That extra budget can easily fund habitat projects and native species restoration programs.

 

The problem with focusing on self-reproducing, native species from the very beginning is that it just doesn't yield the same results. Queens Park politicians can't easily see people fishing for brookies on tiny headwater streams scattered all along the lake shore, or appreciate the economic impact that might represent. It is far easier for them to understand it when you show them a lineup of boats at a suburban launch ramp. Let's face it, politicians need to see results. That's why the Atlantic program has been such a colossal failure. In spite of all the press coverage they got when they stocked fish in the Humber, nothing ever came of it. There was no return of adults, there was no sport fishery created, and most importantly, there was no evidence that stocking all these fish contributed even one penny in extra tax revenue. It failed on every level.

 

I hate for it to be about money, but where Queens Park is concerned, that's all that matters.

 

We once had a great salmon and trout fishery right in the GTA, and at that time, MNR did spend a lot of money on fisheries projects. They built fishways, they removed dams, and they spent money on habitat work. But somewhere along the way, we squandered the big fishery that funded it all, mainly by spreading the stocking over too many locations to produce the kind of concentrated results the politicians need to see. Once that steady exposure to the downtown Toronto politicians disappeared, so did the support for MNR. Their budgets quickly followed suit.

 

I do not believe put-and-take fisheries are the final answer - not by any means. But I do believe they are a critical key to giving MNR some legs to stand on, and bring in money to fund other projects. We need to rebuild that base fishery that pays for everything else.

 

The other issue I see is that in many cases, unfortunately, the habitat has been changed to such an extent that it will simply no longer support the fish communities that it did 300 years ago. Some of that damage simply cannot be undone.

Edited September 24, 2016 by Craig_Ritchie