LAKE ONTARIO-STATE OF THE LAKE

    The DEC presented their annual "State of Lake Ontario" seminar recently; the following is a brief summary of this meeting/seminar.
        It appears that the creel limit for steelhead in the Lake Ontario tribs will be reduced from 3 to 1 per day. The lower Niagara River is excluded from this regulation.
      The proposal to close the walleye season in the lower Niagara River on December 31st instead of March 15th is running into some opposition at this time and will be reexamined.
      The extension of the musky season from November 30th to December 15th in the lower Niagara River does not seem to have any opposition at this time.
      The prey situation in the lake is precarious with the Rainbow smelt population at record lows. The forage food on the bottom is approx. 90% mussels with a complete absence of Diporeia (amphipods) except in the very deep portions of the lake. The amphipods are essential food for the Rainbow smelt and alewifes.  Gobies are on the upswing and probably will soon become a food source for predators. The bottom line is that most prey are on the decline which should be considered serious to the stability of this fishery. The salmon are already showing the effects of the scarcity of prey, as the 3-year-olds are considerably lighter than normal.
      Pen reared fish survive much better than fish stocked immediately into the stream but the success varies greatly depending on the stream the fish are stocked into. The pen reared salmon that are stocked into the lower Niagara appear to have no advantage over direct stocking but Oak Orchard Creek pen reared Salmon do much better than direct stocked fish. The size of the stocked fish also plays a role with larger fish almost always doing better. Steelhead are just the opposite with Niagara River pen reared fish doing much better than direct stocked fish.
   Another interesting item is that barge stocked Brown trout have a 4 times greater return than direct stocked Browns! Transporting the Brown Trout offshore and away from predators is obviously the reason for the great success of the barge-stocking program.
      Did you know that the cormorant colony on Little Galloo Island in eastern Lake Ontario consumed approx. 330 million fish in 10 years! This equates to 1,300 tons of fish per year.  Most of the fish eaten by these voracious predators were perch, panfish with smallmouth bass and other gamefish mixed in. The egg-oiling program to stop their rising population  started on Little Galloo appears to be very successful with a 96% reduction of chicks.  This is a saving of 23,000,000 fish per year since 1999. New York State is looking for federal approval to kill 300 cormorants. This would also go a long way in predation control.
      The catch rate per hour on Lake Ontario last year was the highest on record but the angling effort (fishing trips) was very low.