Syracuse.com - DEC sends out survey to 2,000 anglers on fish stocking/management practices on Owasco Lake

[HuntingNY-News]

The current survey was set to 2,000 anglers, with 50 percent of those receiving cards being from Cayuga County. The survey targeted a 15-mile radius around the lake and has also been sent out to anglers in Seneca, Cortland, Onondaga and Tompkins counties.

My wife, Laura, who rarely fishes except when we go on vacation camping or occasionally on your small boat during the summer, got a note card in the mail from the state Department of Environmental Conservation this week.

"This is for you," she said, handing it to me as we sat in the kitchen and sipped our coffee this morning.

The card announced a survey the DEC is conducting, with the help of Cornell University, about its stocking and management practices on Owasco Lake. It noted my wife's name was "randomly selected from a list of people who live within the zip codes that surround the lake and have state fishing licenses.

"The purpose of his survey is to learn about your fishing experiences on Owasco Lake, as well as your opinions on fishing stocking practices in (the lake)," it read.

 

I'd encourage anyone who receives one of these cards to check out the link to the DEC website to complete itm (you need your ID number listed on the note card), or to call the DEC office at 607-753-3095, extension 213 to get a paper version of it mailed to you.

The DEC depends on surveys like this, plus information obtained from its Angler Diary Program and periodic gill net surveys to learn about what's happening in a lake's fishery and how anglers are doing.

There has been a long-standing controversary on Owasco about whether the lake should be managed as a cold water fishery (where trout/salmon are given preference) or a warm water fishery (where walleyes are added to the mix). This survey is an opportunity for anglers and others who care about the lake to make their feelings known.

The survey was announced earlier this year by DEC officials at a "State of the Eastern Fingerlakes" meeting held in a meeting room at Bass Pro Shops at the Finger Lakes Mall.

At that meeting, it was noted that during the 1980s, the lake's brown and rainbow trout population and angler catches on Owasco Lake were noteworthy, according to angler reports.

But during the 1990s, the catch rates of these two trout species began to slide. Meanwhile, Owasco's lake trout population grew steadily and a walleye stocking effort led by the Owasco Lake Association began in 1996.

"The stocking of walleye were not solely responsible for the drop in brown and rainbow trout," said Dan Bishop, regional natural resources supervisor, but he added that it appeared they were a substantial contributing factor. The DEC, which picked up the stocking of the fish in 2001, discontinued walleye stocking in 2006.

In addition, the DEC cut back on the stocking of lake trout in Owasco.

Should the DEC resume walleye stocking or should its emphasis continue to be on improving the lake's trout and salmon fishery?

Currently, the DEC's emphasis is on the trout and landlocked salmon, and no change is planned, Bishop said the meeting.

The current survey was set to 2,000 anglers, with 50 percent of those receiving cards being from Cayuga County. The survey targeted zip codes with a 15-mile radius around the lake and has also been sent out to anglers in Seneca, Cortland, Onondaga and Tompkins counties.

It also includes all Owasco Lake Angler Diary cooperators (58) and respondents who participated in the 2007 Statewide Fisheries Angler Survey who fished Owasco Lake and indicated they would be willing to participate in future angler questionnaires (40). The DEC notes that "roughly another dozen anglers from this pool were not used because they were going to be asked to participate in a separate DEC angler questionnaire that Cornell University was coordinating."

I plan to help my wife complete the survey to help the cause. As for as this blog, I'll keep my opinions to myself on this one.

View the full article on The Syracuse Outdoors Blog