SAWBELLIES

[marshrat]

This could rage on for years !!!! Most of you are targeting one species of forage. No one mentioned perch, in the fall perch move deep and will be loaded with lake trout eggs. As far as Senecaand Keuka lakes, my first 10 + years as a ECO, both these lakes were void of smelt, again it is assumed that they were interduced via the bait bucket. Both Seneca and Keuka lakes have good natural production of lake trout now, which is a change from 40 years ago. The primary food sources in Seneca lake and Keuka lake are alewifes, along with ciscoes and in Seneca lake trout feed also on sculpin. If it were just smelt, alewifes and perch there still would be good natural reproduction. What all of you are forgetting is that when natural reproduction was non-existent the above mentioned lakes were loaded with DDT. These lakes are surrounded by vineyards and DDT was the pesticide of choice. When DDT was banned many of these farms buried much left over DDT in there farm dumps, usually in a gully. I assisted on this study for years even after I retired. The reason that myself and several other retired ECO's did so was because we had knowledge of some of these dumps. Now that I have bored you with all this, the great news is that natural reproduction is BACK !!!!!!!   

Hey ray you can think what you want but i work at the Northern Appalachian Research Lab and i know what is going on

And ECO not all the lakes are reproducing naturally

[esox slayer]

Hey ray you can think what you want but i work at the Northern Appalachian Research Lab and i know what is going on

And ECO not all the lakes are reproducing naturally

I don't see where ECO said "all" lakes...I see he was talking about Seneca and Keuka...

OK..you work at NARL...do THEY know whats going on in ALL lakes??

Don't be so quick to shoot down somebody elses years of experience...research labs are good, to an extent...but.....

[Ray4852]

Retired eco we can thank the zebra mussles too. I think they have really helped out with the natural reproduction of lake trout on Seneca. I think you know these Seneca lakers spawn in very deep water 200’ or more. The mussels have helped filtered out the pollution of agriculture run off. For years the main diet for lake trout were smelt sawbellies and sculpin. I don’t remember seeing ciscoes. Back in the 50s Seneca might have had a small population of ciscoes but today we don’t have any. If you still have a copy of the old genny beer fishing contest you will see some big lake trout came out of Seneca back in the old days. 30lbs were common. Let not forget the sea lamprey too. If it weren’t for the dec Seneca would be a dead lake today for trout. I have seen a lot of changes on this lake in my 35 yrs I have been fishing it. Its good to see we have a wild lake trout fishery on Seneca today. I wish the rainbow trout would come back too but it’s going to take some work on the part of the fisherman and dec to bring back the rainbow on this lake again. I think it would be a good idea if we shut down Catherine creek for a few years and see what happens.

[Retired ECO]

 
 Ray4852, couldn't agree more with your last post !!!!!  esox slayer, thanks, you saved me from replying with the same !!!!!

[esox slayer]

 Ray4852, couldn't agree more with your last post !!!!!  esox slayer, thanks, you saved me from replying with the same !!!!!

Well..I was going to make comment about research labs bringing us such wonderful healthy things such as silicone implants...DDT,WMD's,etc...but decided to stick to the facts...and before anyone makes comments about implants, I'm talking about the silicone ones only, the ones who cost Dow Corning I think a few hundred million....Esox

[esox slayer]

Hey ray you can think what you want but i work at the Northern Appalachian Research Lab and i know what is going on

And ECO not all the lakes are reproducing naturally

Marshrat..I really don't want to get into a battle here, but you are what, 16 years old??  I mean, what do you do personally at this research lab anyway??  You are still in school...correct??  So, how many hours do you put into this lab weekly??

I really don't think you have the years of experience in any subject yet to be knocking what Ret.ECO has to say, or Ray...that post you made concerning the fish was good..but who did the research to begin with,,,what was the "control" factor..etc., etc...you get my drift??  Over the course of how many years has the study by the NARL been done???

I think you'll find as you mature that just because some place has a fancy name like "research lab" doesn't mean it's got all the answers....Esox

[IceGeek]

I work in a "research lab" and there's more things we don't know than there are things we do know!  That's the funny thing about doing research...every answer opens up a hundred more questions....

[Retired ECO]

  I just had a conversation with my son about that age between 14 and 18 or 20,my grandson just reached that "extremely intelligent" age. I just figure the source and know that "I've backed up more miles than Mushrat will most likely ever go ahead" !!!!!!

[IceGeek]

  "I've backed up more miles than Mushrat will most likely ever go ahead" !!!!!!

Now that there is funny!

[Ray4852]

I think ddt was a chemical that they put on the grape vines to help control the bugs. From many years of use it washed down into the lake and polluted the bottom of Seneca and keuka lakes. Over the years the wineries went out of business and the lake started to improve. Now we have another problem if we don’t keep our eye on it, the pig farmers coming from North Carolina to Seneca County. Pig manure could be a problem in the future. This manure could wash into the lake if we don’t control the number of pig farmers.

[Retired ECO]

 Ray4852, The reduction in DDT was not because of less vineyards, actually there are more today. It was because DDT along with 2-45T and other hydro-carbon base pesticides were banned by the federal government. The use of DDT nearly cost us the eagles in the lower 48 along with many other species. As far as the pig farms, they should be ok as DEC monitors them closely. DEC is well aware of the problem in N.C. a few years ago, many of those pig farms were in flood plains.

[HomerJay]

Great topic!! I have to say though is that slipbob is right the only browns ive seen caught over 15#+ were on sawbellys. The reservoir by my house you wont even get a bite unless you use them. 

I have another question does anyone know if sawbellys are native to any certain lakes.  I was under the impression they were from the ocean and made there way into the lakes and rivers after the flood when the glaciers receded

[marshrat]

Marshrat..I really don't want to get into a battle here, but you are what, 16 years old??  I mean, what do you do personally at this research lab anyway??  You are still in school...correct??  So, how many hours do you put into this lab weekly??

I really don't think you have the years of experience in any subject yet to be knocking what Ret.ECO has to say, or Ray...that post you made concerning the fish was good..but who did the research to begin with,,,what was the "control" factor..etc., etc...you get my drift??  Over the course of how many years has the study by the NARL been done???

I think you'll find as you mature that just because some place has a fancy name like "research lab" doesn't mean it's got all the answers....Esox

You know what i don't really give a hoot what any of you think and the study has been going on since 1995 and i work from 330 to 5 everynight then i have to go to baseball practice intill 8 then i get home at 830 i do make homework then i go to bed get up and do it all over again.

I was just trying to help ray see that sawbellies are not a good thing in SOME of are lakes they carrier Thiminase. If you don't believe me we took a simple from (spelling here) kauga and all the alewives taken from there contained a letheal amount of thiminase in the muscle tissue.
If you want i can up load lots of doc and prove some of you wrong but I'm not going to do that this will be one of my last post on here

[esox slayer]

You know what i don't really give a hoot what any of you think and the study has been going on since 1995 and i work from 330 to 5 everynight then i have to go to baseball practice intill 8 then i get home at 830 i do make homework then i go to bed get up and do it all over again.

I was just trying to help ray see that sawbellies are not a good thing in SOME of are lakes they carrier Thiminase. If you don't believe me we took a simple from (spelling here) kauga and all the alewives taken from there contained a letheal amount of thiminase in the muscle tissue.
If you want i can up load lots of doc and prove some of you wrong but I'm not going to do that this will be one of my last post on here

I think that might be good MR...you don't seem to be able to take somebody else's point of view very well.  First you said "all", now you say "some" and you get all edgy when somebody differs from your opinion....

And your experience is 1 1/2 hours every night, but you never did say what it was you did there....so I don't thiik that even an ongoing since 1995 study by a research lab is going to replace 40-50 years of actual field experience....

case in point??  Cure for the common cold...how many dozens of years have we been searching for a cure??  Surely before 1995 and the research labs haven't come up with one yet...Sorry bud...open your eyes and explore all the avenues...not just the ones you have in front of you...there's people out there that have MANY more years than you....

[esox slayer]

Hey ray you can think what you want but i work at the Northern Appalachian Research Lab and i know what is going on

And ECO not all the lakes are reproducing naturally

Marsh:  I'm glad you know whats going on, cause I went to the NARL website and did a little study of my own..and offer the following excerpt from the study you refer to:>>However, there is a great deal of variability in the thiaminase content of both smelt and alewife and we need to improve our understanding of the consequences of this variation. >>

It appears to me that the NARL isn't as well versed on the subject as you pointed out.  I was going to copy the entire post but figured this would suffice...like I said before..ongoing studies are one thing, but give me a man's experience who's lived on the lake for 40-50 years and he can tell you more about whats happened than any research can ever do