Syracuse.com - Lake Ontario's fishery continues to be in fine shape

[HuntingNY-News]

Fishing for trout and salmon continues to be record-setting. There continues to be questions, though, about what's happening with the lake's smallmouth bass fishery population.

Doug Russell holds up a nice chinook salmon he caught last year while fishing on Lake Ontario with his nephew, Mike Juskow, off Fair Haven.

Lake Ontario’s fishery is in fine shape, according to several presentations given at Wednesday evening’s “State of Lake Ontario” meeting at the DEC’s training facility in Pulaski.

Speakers from state Department of Environmental and U.S. Geological Survey staff covered everything from last year’s record-setting catches of chinook, coho and brown trout -- to the effort to re- introduce a bait fish, the deep-water cisco (also called a bloater). If the fish takes hold, it will give game fish more to eat in the deep sections of the lake.

Jana Lantry, a DEC aquatic biologist, noted last year’s angler boat survey by DEC staff, indicated the trout and salmon catch rate was the second highest catch rate on record. She said that charter boats averaged 8.6 fish per trip, while non-charter boats averaged 3.4 fish per trip.

“It was the 10th consecutive year of high chinook catch rates. In addition, the length and weight of the chinooks were above average,” Lantry said. “The brown trout catch rate was the third highest and coho salmon and rainbow trout remained above average.”

There was a different story, though, when it came to smallmouth bass, particularly along a stretch from Rochester to Oswego.

Lantry said last year’s smallmouth bass catch on the lake “hovered at record lows.” However, she added that netting surveys in the Eastern basis revealed more smallies in the 4- to 5-pound range than last year’s outings.

During the period stretching from 1999 to 2003, Lantry said, the percentage of fisherman targeting bass on the lake was about 32 percent. That number has since decreased to 12 percent.

It’s still not clear what has caused the drop in bass being caught. Speculation has included that round gobies, an invasive species that’s taken hold on the lake, are ravaging the nests of spawning bass. Another explanation might be the unexplained drop in the crayfish population, a prey preferred by bass, along certain stretches of the lake’s southern shore.

Meanwhile, a lake tributary angler survey revealed to no one’s surprise that the Salmon River continues to be the top attraction (68 percent) when it comes to the total number of anglers fishing for chinook and coho salmon and steelhead.

DEC staff estimated fishermen put in a total of 1.1 million angler hours on the waterway last year, and that 60 percent of the fishermen were non-state residents. A total of 21 states were represented.

View the full article on The Syracuse Outdoors Blog