Tell me something my graph didn't show

[spincast]

The NY shore had a fantastic year on Lake O this year, while we on the north west side were not so lucky. I have been noticing and commenting on the shortage of bait fish on our end of the lake for the last 3 - 4 years. It appears that others may now share my opinion.  If lower stocking means long term recovery, and not a repeat of the Lake Huron scenario, I'm all in.

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2018/09/28/lake-ontario-salmon-and-trout-fishing-alewife-surveys-dec-stocking-plan-sport-fishing-rochester/1457993002/

Science is telling fisheries managers to cut back on stocking so that the adult alewife population can rebound.

There were poor survival rates of the lake's main forage fish in 2013 and 2014. In addition, survival rates for a bumper 2016 alewife crop were worse than expected, and below-average production in 2017 “exacerbated forecasted declines.’’

I assume the Ontario response will be similar. Except of course for Atlantics, no doubt they will still dump millions of them in to stew to death as instinct calls them to the hot July tribs.....

 

[OhioFisherman]

The bait fish and fish growth and population are all tied together? Here on Lake Erie I have seen a number of articles about the shortage of Emerald shiners over the past decade or so. A different deal than the alewife though because they are bigger, but you do have to wonder how stocking non native species affects the growth and survival rate of fish like walleye and muskie? Both of those could probably eat an alewife?

[Snidley]

Years ago I used to fish for steelhead all through the summer months at the Whirlpool. They were so fat that their heads looked like a double chin on top of the head and with heavy bellies as well. To catch them I would take a minnow net to scoop some shiners. There were millions of them close to the shore line thoughout the summer and that is why the steelies stayed around (cool water temps too). For the last 10-15 years there have been very few shiners in the Whirlpool especially past springtime. We all blamed bait dealers who apparently netted them like crazy in the Niagara region back then  but that must be over now since you can't transfer baitfish for sale from different waterbodies. I don't get down to the Whirlpool much but I don't think the baitfish ever came back to 80's and 90's numbers. Sort of like everything else.

[spincast]

That's a bait ball from 2012, my two rigger lines entering it. Its 70 foot tall at the leading edge. this was a regular occurence in 2012 and the years before when I first started fishing the big water. Back to back cold winters decimated the alewive population. Many was the time in the last 2 years when I saw no bait balls for entire days, and when I did, they were insignificant compared to this.  Lake Huron used to have millions of alewives and thriving salmon fishery: , the alewife population crashed and with it the size and quantity of salmon likewise shrank.   As a weekend angler, I have noticed a rapid  decline of not just salmon, but rainbows in the lake over the last 4 years, at least where I fish. And they are smaller when you do connect.  There was one spot I used to fish off Jordan i called the "Bowling Alley" because it would always produce bows, in both quantity and size.  The screen looked like pins lined up in a bowling alley with waypoints. It hasn't produced either size or quantity for me in the last two years. Many will say the fishery is still productive - it is. But if you look at the derby winners now versus then or even further back, the tale of the scale says much. 

[OhioFisherman]

http://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/Home/Topics/FishSpecies/Details.aspx?PostID=362

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alewife

If they are a species of shad weather changes sort of makes sense, we have huge die offs of gizzard shad here.

[farsider]

Cormorants factor into Baitfish numbers at all?

[OhioFisherman]

44 minutes ago, farsider said:

Cormorants factor into Baitfish numbers at all?

Just guessing here farsider, probably but to a limited extent on what you consider baitfish? I can picture them chasing alewives and shad which grow to a larger size than emerald shiners more, just less energy expended for a meal? I have no idea how particular they are about what species of fish they are eating though, but since most birds burn thru energy a bigger meal with less work might be their plan?

[spincast]

the biologists seem to point to the 2 back to back very cold winters as a critical time / point in this situation - but, given that winters were colder and longer 20 years ago, my thoughts are that the deep freeze, where Lake O was almost frozen from shore to shore was just one of the contributing factors, and likely was the last piece of stress to put  the alewife population in jeopardy - zebra mussels and other filter feeders impacting the plankton that starts the food chain, gobies competing at the start of the food chain, would all be contributing factors, Cormorants -  just reviewing the size of the bait ball in the screen, and considering the size of lake ontario, I suspect their contribution to this situation isn't a significant factor, but each negative element would put stress on the overall biomass.  Anyway you look at it, the top predators need the plankton to be plentiful and healthy if they are to succeed. Water clarity in a great Lake is not necessarily an indication of a healthy lake.

Edited September 29, 2018 by spincast

[Snidley]

There were huge flocks of Cormorants at the Humber, Hamilton even way up river in Oakville Creek. Their numbers are way down. I bet lack of easy food, which defines ailwife.

 

Their was a series of meetings with the MNR staff re their electronic creel survey of Lake O. Essentially boats traverse the lake with sonar and determine  fish populations. Ailwife were way down but there were salmon still out there but without bait clouds they hunt individually as opposed to in packs. This leaves the trollers catching sinular fish, sporadically. My personal opinion is that salmon are down here and up elsewhere on lake O but with much lower total numbers of catchable salmonoids.  They need easy prey to thrive and overall, that resource is like everything else around here, precarious

[porkpie]

Everything is cyclical on the lake.  When I was a kid, ashbridges was littered with dead baitfish in the spring from die offs.  We don't see that anymore.  Water clarity is vastly different from my first downrigging experiences in my early 20's to now.  There was a time when salmon fishermen seldom fished deeper than 60 down.  Now I often run a ball at 120-140.  The cormorants are a contributing factor as well. That said, last season was one of the best I, or many of my friends have seen on the north shore in a long time.  You almost couldn't miss.  I marked  plenty of big bait balls last year also. This year, Erie was so good that I spent almost all of my time walleye fishing, and Ontario north shore reports where pretty crappy from most that I talked to that I didn't bother much until mid August and mainly fished stagers.  I still marked bait, but not a ton, and the window was to short to form an opinion.  I did make a couple of trips to the 200 plus foot of water range in the latter half of August and had a pretty steady bite on 10/12 pound fish and some decent bows also, so I think everyone's experiences may differ depending on where they are fishing. The south shore guys sure seemed to have creamed them this season.  Could be the bait is sitting on that side, could be the population is in trouble, I don't know, but I know that I've seen worse fishing, so I'm optimistic at this point.  Lake Erie on the other hand is some of the best fishing I've ever seen. Many days we caught walleye one after the other until we where sick of it.  Limit where guaranteed and 50 plus plus fish days where common.  I've seen some of the best opportunities for trollers in the last few seasons that it's hard not to feel like these ARE the good old days.  I'm hopeful it keeps up.

[John Bacon]

7 hours ago, spincast said:

the biologists seem to point to the 2 back to back very cold winters as a critical time / point in this situation - but, given that winters were colder and longer 20 years ago, my thoughts are that the deep freeze, where Lake O was almost frozen from shore to shore was just one of the contributing factors, and likely was the last piece of stress to put  the alewife population in jeopardy - zebra mussels and other filter feeders impacting the plankton that starts the food chain, gobies competing at the start of the food chain, would all be contributing factors, Cormorants -  just reviewing the size of the bait ball in the screen, and considering the size of lake ontario, I suspect their contribution to this situation isn't a significant factor, but each negative element would put stress on the overall biomass.  Anyway you look at it, the top predators need the plankton to be plentiful and healthy if they are to succeed. Water clarity in a great Lake is not necessarily an indication of a healthy lake.

We also had three cool summers, before, after, and between those two cold winters.  That may have contributed to the die offs as well.  But, other factors such as quagga/zerba mussels and cormorants probably didn't help either.
 

1 hour ago, porkpie said:

Everything is cyclical on the lake.  When I was a kid, ashbridges was littered with dead baitfish in the spring from die offs.  We don't see that anymore.  Water clarity is vastly different from my first downrigging experiences in my early 20's to now.  There was a time when salmon fishermen seldom fished deeper than 60 down.  Now I often run a ball at 120-140.  The cormorants are a contributing factor as well. That said, last season was one of the best I, or many of my friends have seen on the north shore in a long time.  You almost couldn't miss.  I marked  plenty of big bait balls last year also. This year, Erie was so good that I spent almost all of my time walleye fishing, and Ontario north shore reports where pretty crappy from most that I talked to that I didn't bother much until mid August and mainly fished stagers.  I still marked bait, but not a ton, and the window was to short to form an opinion.  I did make a couple of trips to the 200 plus foot of water range in the latter half of August and had a pretty steady bite on 10/12 pound fish and some decent bows also, so I think everyone's experiences may differ depending on where they are fishing. The south shore guys sure seemed to have creamed them this season.  Could be the bait is sitting on that side, could be the population is in trouble, I don't know, but I know that I've seen worse fishing, so I'm optimistic at this point.  Lake Erie on the other hand is some of the best fishing I've ever seen. Many days we caught walleye one after the other until we where sick of it.  Limit where guaranteed and 50 plus plus fish days where common.  I've seen some of the best opportunities for trollers in the last few seasons that it's hard not to feel like these ARE the good old days.  I'm hopeful it keeps up.

Those die offs were the reason that salmon were stocked in the first place.  The combination of salmon, quagga/zebra mussels, & corporants have worked a little too well.

[captpierre]

Thanks to Lake Erie, lots of nutrients feeding the microscopic food chain entering Lake Ontario. Not so in Lake Huron. 

[OhioFisherman]

I fished Lake Erie and a lot of it's tributaries for a lot of years, I also caught my own bait in a number of them, I never saw a single golden shiner, let alone a school of them in any of those waters.

I wonder what kind of impact them being sold as an alternate to Emerald Shiners will have? You know some are being dumped into Lake Erie when the day is done. Allegedly they are a native species here, but they only places I have ever seen them is in man made lakes  where they were sold as bait in nearby bait stores and man made ponds where they were stocked as a food source.

I don't view having another bait fish swimming around as a bad thing, especially one that can reach 10 inches or more, and I don't know enough about their habits to know if they will impact other baitfish, they are good bait for bass and walleye on Lake Erie though, and anywhere else I have used them.

[spincast]

10 hours ago, captpierre said:

Thanks to Lake Erie, lots of nutrients feeding the microscopic food chain entering Lake Ontario. Not so in Lake Huron. 

true. and while that definitely helps. With out that input  things could be even worse. The picture below provides a good visualization as to how small overall  that input is,. And as a you can see from the direction of the flow once it enters the lake, that affect would be localised primarily along the S shore. Some of it does spin off into the W end, but the bulk heads the NY state coast and currents then spread it our from there.

 

 

13 hours ago, porkpie said:

Lake Erie on the other hand is some of the best fishing I've ever seen. Many days we caught walleye one after the other until we where sick of it.  Limit where guaranteed and 50 plus plus fish days where common.  I've seen some of the best opportunities for trollers in the last few seasons that it's hard not to feel like these ARE the good old days.  I'm hopeful it keeps up.

No kidding- , lake Erie was on fire this year. I couldn't' believe the numbers! I spent more time out there this season that I ever have, but it isn't the same - watching the rod tip for bumps, or the planer board for the flag to raise , as opposed to holding your rod as it screams out 150 foot of line in a couple seconds, or the planer board simply takes off backwards and dives!.  Wet sock versus freight train in my opinion.  Even when I started to experiment with lighter set ups on Erie this year so I could feel and see the fish when they hit, it doesn't compare. I kinda view Erie as the grocery store, and Ontario and the football field. 

 

 

 

Edited September 30, 2018 by spincast

[OhioFisherman]

https://www.cleveland.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2018/09/fishing_report_for_sept_28_loc.html#incart_river_index

The guy that writes this is the long time outdoors writer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper, now  semi retired? but still writing? According to his reports this was another very good year for the walleye spawn on Lake Erie?

Hmmm... Emerald shiners still in short supply?

" Surprisingly, some Black River anglers casting Sonar lures from shore off Spitzer Marina and other areas are catching walleye at night and during the day, as well as smallmouth bass. "

Hmmm... I guess he has never seen the shiners and small shad stacked up in that river?

[AKRISONER]

the decline of salmonoids on Lake Huron is totally intentional...look at the MNR's stocking programs on that lake over the past 20+ years. focus is on native species...the laketrout and walleye populations on that lake are as someone describe (now is the good old days)

Although laketrout are not found throughout the entire lake like they once were due to their near total extinction, (e.g. you wont find lakers in Pointe Au Baril etc.) the areas where the MNR restocked them...any idiot can catch them, trust me i know this because I can catch them and im an idiot.

Edited October 1, 2018 by AKRISONER

[grimsbylander]

35 minutes ago, AKRISONER said:

the decline of salmonoids on Lake Huron is totally intentional...look at the MNR's stocking programs on that lake over the past 20+ years. focus is on native species...the laketrout and walleye populations on that lake are as someone describe (now is the good old days)

Although laketrout are not found throughout the entire lake like they once were due to their near total extinction, (e.g. you wont find lakers in Pointe Au Baril etc.) the areas where the MNR restocked them...any idiot can catch them, trust me i know this because I can catch them and im an idiot.

Lol...that's it, I'm taking up laker fishing. haha

[Mister G]

Everyone forgot about the "SMELT" population that has been down for a VERY long time in both Erie and especially Ontario.

[ch312]

On 9/29/2018 at 12:06 PM, farsider said:

Cormorants factor into Baitfish numbers at all?

I was reading the results of a study done in then 90's which showed cormorants were only eating about 0.5% of the batifish annually in lake O compared to 15% that sportfish ate. Even if you multiply cormorant population by 10x (updated population numbers aren't available), that's still only 5% of the baitfish biomass meaning cormorants are basically irrelevant. I believe alewife were around 30% of the cormorants diet. 

 

They aren't as bad as some people will have you believe, but it's easy to place the blame on the birds. 

[jimmer]

Over the years of fishing I have come to understand that nothing ever stays the same.  Whether it's bait fish, fish species, weeds, temperatures, fishing pressure, weather, invasive species, stocking, pollution, etc, it all has significant impact on fisheries. It might be a simple way to look at it, but sometimes we have to accept the changes for what they are.

[OhioFisherman]

4 hours ago, Mister G said:

Everyone forgot about the "SMELT" population that has been down for a VERY long time in both Erie and especially Ontario.

There are some interesting articles on smelt, low numbers may not be a bad thing?

http://www.seagrant.umn.edu/fisheries/smelt_mystery

"

What Else Can We Blame on Smelt?

Both smelt and alewives contain thiaminase -- an enzyme that destroys thiamine (Vitamin B1) and causes deficiencies in fish. It didn’t take mink farmers long to realize that when mink were fed raw smelt, they didn’t reproduce. It took longer to realize that what was described as early mortality syndrome (EMS) in lake trout and other salmonids was caused by a thiamine deficiency resulting from eating smelt and alewives. It eventually became clear that fish that fed heavily on smelt and alewives produced larvae that didn’t survive very well. This is likely slowing lake trout rehabilitation efforts in the other Great Lakes. "

 

[maksuttt]

6 hours ago, OhioFisherman said:

Both smelt and alewives contain thiaminase -- an enzyme that destroys thiamine (Vitamin B1) and causes deficiencies in fish. It didn’t take mink farmers long to realize that when mink were fed raw smelt, they didn’t reproduce. It took longer to realize that what was described as early mortality syndrome (EMS) in lake trout and other salmonids was caused by a thiamine deficiency resulting from eating smelt and alewives. It eventually became clear that fish that fed heavily on smelt and alewives produced larvae that didn’t survive very well. This is likely slowing lake trout rehabilitation efforts in the other Great Lakes. "

 

That's good info! Thanks

[OhioFisherman]

If the date on this video is correct it seems there are still smelt out there?

 

dip net and lift net massive smelt fishing at Niagara river Apr 14-2017 - YouTube

[maksuttt]

After thinking about all the mentioned earlier statistics on Great Lakes' smelt it makes sense that it disappeared from Simcoe too.