Disastrous Year on Lake O

[RonRoach]

Mr. Webster there is no doubt in my mind that you would disagree with any valid points just for an argument.

I would also point out that it is illegal to fish or try to fish for sturgeon in Ontario , so I dont understand why you be happy catching atlantics lakers and sturgeon when you are not allowed to do so - sturgeon I am referring to.

PS how may atlantics have you caught?

[SpoonPullers.com]

[gambler]

Kings have adapted to the thiamine issue and are naturally reproducing at a high rate compared to all the other trout and salmon species.  The NYSDEC had a slide a couple years ago that showed Atlantics are most susceptible to the thiamine issue out of all the stocked species. 

[My2kids]

I have not fished Lake O, and this is my first season on Huron.  The one common theme is fishing has been poor there as well.  Temperatures have been all over and very hot so perhaps?

[Kinghunted]

Good topic.

This year was 'average' for me.  May, especially June looked like it was going to be a banner year; July was a complete BUST!  The Toronto waterfront fishery has gone downhill for at least 6 years running....period!

I know how and do catch them.  If there aren't as many around I obviously won't catch as much.  In my opinion doing field study (walking the rivers) very little natural reproduction except for a few tribs which cannot support the sport fishery demand!

This was always a stock, catch/keep or release fishery; this should have never changed.  One of the largest cities in North America could have the best salmon fishing is being squandered.

The Western basin no longer supports a pre-stage and staging fishery like it used to; except for a few small rivers with poor ports!

Why we still stocking Lakers?  Explain this to me?

[RonRoach]

Amen . Because the powers to be want nothing in the lake except native species.

[Splaker]

Amen . Because the powers to be want nothing in the lake except native species.

And the so-called natives are actually not native... the native lakers and Atlantics are extirpated... we are putting in strains of fish from other waterbodies...

Just stock the lake with chinooks and cohos (lots) and let people have fun..

[drjoe]

Don't let your opinions be confused by the facts ! At one time Port Dalhousie was a major commercial fishing port ; one of the targeted
spieces was the Cisco ! [ the main forage base for the Atlantic salmon ] They would take then at ~ 500 ft. down until the the harvest ran out  !
Farmers on the north shore would gleefully fork the returning Atlantic Salmon as pig food !
There are the recipes for disaster along with loss of spawning streams do to dams etc.
Can the Atlantic come back ? What you see is what you get !

[silvertracker]

Not to mention - the western basin - has very little spring fishery - used to start April 15 back in the 80s and fish right thru - now - get in the truck and head to St Kitts - i remember catching 5 - 10 salmon a day in the late 80s just off the Ridgetown- not any more

[waterdownredneck]

I have been following this and trying to keep up with all of the calculations, I have not done well let’s just say but...   is this why out of Fisherman’s Pier, and in the west end we have seen such a decline?  I remember in the 80’s and 90’s when I would fish 4 days a week before work and seldom ever venture down to Bronte, we just didn’t need to, you had plenty to catch all around the old 1 mile marker that used to be out there. I just assumed we had a lot of fish down in the west end, it was world class back then.  Was that all just due to stocking programs?  And now we have few fish at all at our end because of years of under or no stocking?  This is what I would like to educate myself better on, the “why”  I was told the US fish now only come down as far as Grimsby area, this is why from there, to Jordan and all the way down is so productive in the early months, is that true?

I along with others on here who I know used to take the last week of the salmon derby off work and fish every day.  A few guys used to camp in the Parking lot all week even, every year.  It was nothing to catch double digit 20, 25 and 30lb fish every morning, it was a catch and release frenzy.  Sometimes there were 100 boats out front of Burlington, now you might see 1.  If we caught an entry fish, we were right at the end of the canal so we could break down enough to run in, get the gill plate punched, release the live fish at the launch, watch it swim away, fill out the entry card and go do it all again.  Man those were the days.  Why is it not like that now? 

Granted it did take the Salmon Derby Officials way too long to raise the weight of the fish that counted as an entry, there used to be dead salmon with derby holes in their gill plate stinking up the whole lake shore during the Salmon Hunt Derby.  Someone please correct me but was it not any fish over 5lbs counted as an entry, then they eventually raised it to 20lbs and so on.  We did not enter a fish unless we thought it had the potential for a weekly prize on the board.  Did we do this to ourselves?  Have we only ourselves to blame for the lack of staging fish and high numbers off Burlington?  I sure hope not.  I’m 53 but have been on the lake since I was 8yrs old, I see some of the newer folks out there over the past few yrs and hope they get to experience what I used to someday again.  It’s fun to hit double digits in the blue zone or off Jordon in the spring, but to catch 10-15 30lb fish in a row, now that’s fishing.  It was so good, I quit a job one year as they told me I had to give up my derby week .  Sorry for the long post, just sentimental this morning I guess.  J

[RonRoach]

Good post waterdown neck. Although a small handful will disagree with me as always its dosent need rocket science to understand why the demise has happened.

1) Lack of stocking By far the main reason . The us stock approx 3 times as many as we do
2) Virtually no natural reproduction except maybe credit and ganny and on the credit the salmon cant get to the ideal spawing grounds due to dams (and the elite fly fisherman)
3) Cormorants . I saw a flock this year over a mile long at Bluffers 3 weeks ago
4) Lake trout and atlantic stocking over chinooks . But no worries there as they dont eat alewives (some would have you believe)

[spincast]

The bait fish took a serious hit with the back to back cold winters in 13 and 14, and reducing the stocking then was a prudent choice.   Huron fishery was at one time incredibly good too, but the bait crash there caused a significant deterioration, such that it what it is today.  However, we haven't had a cold winter since 14, at least not that cold. On the other hand, cold winters like that were common in 70's and 80-s when the lake was at its prime.  Definitely invasive have effected the lake since then as well.  But why the long steady downward trend?

And, how long do we persist in reducing the stocking programs?  I haven't seen the 30 foot deep, and yards long bait clouds that shake the riggers  this year, but what I have seen is lots of bait that isn't compressed into balls that is spread over a wide area.   They aren't balling because there are no predators feeding on them  I worked lots of bait clouds this year with no strikes and no hooks on the graph
The bait fish are recovering, and I suspect  next year there will be an explosion of bait   
The 3 year life cycle for Chinook means the matures next year, will be the few that survived the 2020 COVID impact, which was  significant.   and we have seen that in the fewer 2nd years caught this year.   2022 Will also see 2nd years of the even more impacted 2021 stocking reductions, from both the government and the private ventures. 
I've only been fishing the lake since 2010.  2013 was the last good season I had , when you could count on west winds bringing 10 to 15 fish days before noon on the west end.

We can make numbers say what we want them to say depending on how we present the information, and the baseline data we select.  This does not mean it is a conspiracy, it means someone's job is on the line if things don't look good, or meet the predictions. 

The best evaluation of the success if a fishery is the results of the anglers.   To Ron's point, and many I have spoken to, this year was not only a continuation in the slow downward trend, it was like falling off a cliff. Whether it was off Jordan, Grimsby, Bronte, Bluffer or Newcastle, it was a season notable for the lower performance by weekend warriors and the pros alike.

Time to resume our previous stocking levels, or work towards it

[HBC]

Good post waterdown neck. Although a small handful will disagree with me as always its dosent need rocket science to understand why the demise has happened.


2) Virtually no natural reproduction except maybe credit and ganny and on the credit the salmon cant get to the ideal spawing grounds due to dams (and the elite fly fisherman)

I'd have to completely disagree with this comment.  The eastern tribs have a ton of natural reproduction.  When they did the fin clipping to assess naturals vs stocked fish, I scouted two eastern tribs and their natural reproduction > 95% for all the times I canvassed the rivers.  And I was involved in the fin clipping, pens, etc during this time as a volunteer.

The western tribs, I'd have to say natural reproduction is very low for many reasons.

[Canadian613]

I have to agree that the eastern tribes are alive and well. The returns of fish to streams amd river that aren’t stocked are a testimony of the natural reproduction. I do agree that stocking should be maintained to keep the fishing on a upward trend instead of downward. See what next year brings. But I still leaning to winds and weather affecting the fishing this year. June looked like was going to be a stellar year salmon showed up early and then July hit and not so seasonal weather and winds. Left us scratching are heads every couple days, and aug hit July weather came and stable weather with it. But as every aug those salmon salmon are not so predictable becomes more of a blue zone fish and scatter them as they bounce from deep to shallow. My observation over the years some might disagree..

[Steelhead Chaser]

Would like to add my observations.. I pull cameras around down there off my kayak. I have been doing so for years. It has helped me learn a lot. Proper speeds and depths. As well as fish interaction with the bait.

Every other year I would have many fish on camera come in and check the gear out. Only a very small percentage would actually take but that was normal. This year I had one trip where I seen 2 fish come up in behind. All other trips were hours of washing gear and blank camera screens.

Could have been wind and/or weather related but it was definitely a first. Went from seeing hundreds of fish each year on camera to only seeing 2 this year...

[RonRoach]

Super thread . HBC I have a question . How do you arrive at more than 95% natural reproduction in the eastern rivers. ?Granted you may see kings on the redds spawning but how on earth do these offspring fish survive in juy and august when the river is at 75/80 degrees and very little water in them. Even the MNR and DEC state that its only 50% (and believe me that is a nonsense figure.)  If this 95% was true then there would be no need for pens and any type of stocking and the lake would be alive with fish.

The only true way to see what the natural reproduction rate is , is to go back to fin clipping of the stocked fish. Easy peasy but it wont happen because of , and this is my opinion , it would prove that the reproduction rate would be much much lower.  . And remember from any natural reproduction its a very low % that actually make it to 3 years