Weekend Trout and Salmon

[Drossi]

Originally Posted by Chrisper4694

I'll just add pics to this report:

got my first ice fishing salmon as well and jigged up a nice bass when i moved into the weeds because i got fed up with the salmon following my lure and not hitting it.

Wearing Ranger gear on the ice.....that's courting danger! I'm into them for 47 years of misery (and 1 of euphoria) myself. Made me a better fisherman cause i know disaster is but a moment away at any time.

[Chrisper4694]

Originally Posted by Drossi

Wearing Ranger gear on the ice.....that's courting danger! I'm into them for 47 years of misery (and 1 of euphoria) myself. Made me a better fisherman cause i know disaster is but a moment away at any time.

i like to temp fate...i also play russian roulette every night when i get home, still alive.

Tom, can't agree with you on that one, i think they should slot it, taking the smaller fish is good for growing big fish. they should keep the minimum size and cut it off at 18 or 19 (at least for a couple of years). all game fish should be slotted, to make more 'big fish' fisheries, but it's never going to happen so idk why i'm even talking about it again...

Originally Posted by Chrisper4694

i like to temp fate...i also play russian roulette every night when i get home, still alive.

Tom, can't agree with you on that one, i think they should slot it, taking the smaller fish is good for growing big fish. they should keep the minimum size and cut it off at 18 or 19 (at least for a couple of years). all game fish should be slotted, to make more 'big fish' fisheries, but it's never going to happen so idk why i'm even talking about it again...

Chris in cases where there's a tremendous number of fish stocked, I completely agree with your argument. But with this fishery, I don't think that's what we're talking about. Following excerpt from F&W.

Catching Landlocked Salmon (Salmo salar sebago) close to home has never been easier, or more fun, now that Fish and Wildlife is stocking large salmon every fall. Measuring 14-15 inches, these two-year old fish are stocked in select lakes where they can survive year-round, providing anglers with immediate and long-term opportunities to catch this hard-fighting species.

Fish and Wildlife stocks approximately 2,500 to 3,000 salmon, averaging 14-15 inches, each fall. Salmon are stocked when surface water temperatures fall below 60°F (October to early November). Anglers should be aware that salmon regulations vary between designated Holdover Trout Lakes and the Trophy Trout Lake.

Lake Wawayanda (Sussex) - 1,275
Lake Aeroflex (Sussex) - 505
Tilcon Lake (Morris) - 440
Merrill Creek (Warren) - 325

The salmon stocked are 14"-15" fish. Put Merrill aside for now since their size limit is 15" with a 2 fish combined possession limit of trout and salmon. The other three lakes have a 12" size limit with fish being stocked in excess of that so in reality and since there's no natural reproduction occurring there is no size limit for this fishery. Aeroflex and Tilcon combined get 945 fish a year (about 470 average per lake) with a 2 possession limit at 12". With the way these places get pounded, very few fish will ever make it to trophy status with a slot since there's so few fish stocked. And with the abundance of forage in all four systems, I don't believe an 18" size limit will create a predator / forage imbalance and stunt the limited amount of fish we're talking about.

Give them time to grow, impose a one fish possession limit over 18" and I believe we'll have a better chance establishing a trophy fishery. As it stands now, too many of these fish are harvested within a month of being stocked before the water gets too cold in the Fall or too warm in the Summer and they go deep. And even then, the pressure on them from ice fishing when there's safe ice is increasing as people show more interest in this fishery.

Just my opinion but like you said it probably won't change anyway!

[Chrisper4694]

Originally Posted by dakota560

Chris in cases where there's a tremendous number of fish stocked, I completely agree with your argument. But with this fishery, I don't think that's what we're talking about. Following excerpt from F&W.

Catching Landlocked Salmon (Salmo salar sebago) close to home has never been easier, or more fun, now that Fish and Wildlife is stocking large salmon every fall. Measuring 14-15 inches, these two-year old fish are stocked in select lakes where they can survive year-round, providing anglers with immediate and long-term opportunities to catch this hard-fighting species.

Fish and Wildlife stocks approximately 2,500 to 3,000 salmon, averaging 14-15 inches, each fall. Salmon are stocked when surface water temperatures fall below 60°F (October to early November). Anglers should be aware that salmon regulations vary between designated Holdover Trout Lakes and the Trophy Trout Lake.

Lake Wawayanda (Sussex) - 1,275
Lake Aeroflex (Sussex) - 505
Tilcon Lake (Morris) - 440
Merrill Creek (Warren) - 325

The salmon stocked are 14"-15" fish. Put Merrill aside for now since their size limit is 15" with a 2 fish combined possession limit of trout and salmon. The other three lakes have a 12" size limit with fish being stocked in excess of that so in reality and since there's no natural reproduction occurring there is no size limit for this fishery. Aeroflex and Tilcon combined get 945 fish a year (about 470 average per lake) with a 2 possession limit at 12". With the way these places get pounded, very few fish will ever make it to trophy status with a slot since there's so few fish stocked. And with the abundance of forage in all four systems, I don't believe an 18" size limit will create a predator / forage imbalance and stunt the limited amount of fish we're talking about.

Give them time to grow, impose a one fish possession limit over 18" and I believe we'll have a better chance establishing a trophy fishery. As it stands now, too many of these fish are harvested within a month of being stocked before the water gets too cold in the Fall or too warm in the Summer and they go deep. And even then, the pressure on them from ice fishing when there's safe ice is increasing as people show more interest in this fishery.

Just my opinion but like you said it probably won't change anyway!

idk the only thing that might be different with a species like salmon is the fact that they feed so much more effectively with bigger schools working together. I still think every small fish kept means more forage for the remaining and will help resist a stunting like what happened to the lake trout at rvr.

i really don't know, but it takes a hell of a lot more food to get a fish from 17-20" than it does to get it from 12-15"

Chris my opinion is just that my opinion, it's not scientifically based. But my point remains that with so few fish stocked, keeping smaller slots when the fish being stocked are already 14"-15", I personally don't believe many fish will make it to 18" or above or for that matter survive the first year. That coupled with the fact there's no natural reproduction, not allowing harvest of the larger fish won't help reproduction one bit so larger fish will eventually die due to improper handling when caught or old age. Almost the opposite of what's happening with the fluke fishery which has a large biomass but the large female breeders which are the future of the fishery have been over harvested. In that scenario as I've said repeatedly on the salt water forum, a slot scenario makes perfect sense to protect the breeders. Just don't see that scenario helping when we're talking about ~2,500 fish being stocked a year between four impoundments.

As far as growth being stunted if a higher size limit was implemented, these are the statistics on alewife reproduction.

Spawning alewives present nutrients to freshwater ecosystems in the form of eggs, excreted materials and their dead and decaying bodies. Each female produces 60,000 to 467,000 eggs annually and may spawn up to seven or eight years in her lifetime.

I don't think alewife forage will come into play if the size limit is increased to 18" based on the number of fish stocked and the reproductive capacity of alewives in the four lakes involved coupled with the amount of alewives which already exist. Their reproductive capacity is significant. If we were talking about Round Valley or Merrill Creek, I'd agree with your recommendation but only because there's too many lakers, browns and rainbows in both relative to forage and it is impacting growth rates. Don't believe that would be the case in Aeroflex, Waywayanda or Tilcon which have significantly lower or no populations of trout. Plus lakers are eating machines which three of the four impoundments stocked with salmon don't have.

[Chrisper4694]

Originally Posted by dakota560

Chris my opinion is just that my opinion, it's not scientifically based. But my point remains that with so few fish stocked, keeping smaller slots when the fish being stocked are already 14"-15", I personally don't believe many fish will make it to 18" or above or for that matter survive the first year. That coupled with the fact there's no natural reproduction, not allowing harvest of the larger fish won't help reproduction one bit so larger fish will eventually die due to improper handling when caught or old age. Almost the opposite of what's happening with the fluke fishery which has a large biomass but the large female breeders which are the future of the fishery have been over harvested. In that scenario as I've said repeatedly on the salt water forum, a slot scenario makes perfect sense to protect the breeders. Just don't see that scenario helping when we're talking about ~2,500 fish being stocked a year between four impoundments.

As far as growth being stunted if a higher size limit was implemented, these are the statistics on alewife reproduction.

Spawning alewives present nutrients to freshwater ecosystems in the form of eggs, excreted materials and their dead and decaying bodies. Each female produces 60,000 to 467,000 eggs annually and may spawn up to seven or eight years in her lifetime.

I don't think alewife forage will come into play if the size limit is increased to 18" based on the number of fish stocked and the reproductive capacity of alewives in the four lakes involved coupled with the amount of alewives which already exist. Their reproductive capacity is significant. If we were talking about Round Valley or Merrill Creek, I'd agree with your recommendation but only because there's too many lakers, browns and rainbows in both relative to forage and it is impacting growth rates. Don't believe that would be the case in Aeroflex, Waywayanda or Tilcon which have significantly lower or no populations of trout. Plus lakers are eating machines which three of the four impoundments stocked with salmon don't have.

i'm not really sure how to explain my point here, but i'll try...

people who are legally keeping fish are going to keep fish at whatever the legal size is. if that size is smaller, each fish taken out is less of a dent on the ecosystem (assuming the forage base can handle the amount of bigger fish) because of how it exponentially takes more food to get fish bigger, as they grow bigger.

so in other words killing an older fish is more wasteful if the goal is to build a 'big fish' fishery... every time a big fish is taken out of a lake, all the forage it has eaten is gone to 'waste' because now it can't spawn (laying more eggs than smaller fish and possibly passing better growth genes, etc.) again this only matters if the forage population in the lake can handle it.

as it stands now, with a smaller size limit, anglers who want to help build a 'big fish' fishery can keep smaller fish instead of bigger fish. these fish have not eaten as much forage yet and represent less of an impact on the ecosystem when kept. If these same anglers are hit with a higher size limit, most will still want to keep fish and now be keeping more bigger fish that have already impacted the ecosystem more.

bottom line is... no regulation is going to help grow a big fish fishery unless people make a personal conscious decision to return bigger sized fish to the water as often as possible. bigger fish are worth far more in the water than eaten, every single time. and that goes for anyone, whether you like to keep fish every time you go fishing or never keep fish; fresh or salt... the bigger fish are more valuable to everyone in the water.

btw i've seen about 6-7 salmon over 18" up to about 25-26" personally caught or lost at the hole in just the last 4-5 ice fishing trips, so trust me, there are a good amount getting to 'big fish' size...we just need to protect them at bigger sizes not at smaller sizes.