Trannyman1 wrote:
ut_falcon wrote:
Hi Al,
1. Fact: Atlantics and other native species are now being given priority on the credit river, here are some direct excerpts from the 2013 Credit River Fisheries Management Plan:
http://iwffc.ca/credit-river-fisheries- ... mber-2013/ (the part about discontinuing brown trout stocking in the credit river if it competes with redside dace is really concerning)
“It should also be noted that brown trout are known to compete with brook trout and Atlantic salmon and are now considered an invasive species in some areas of North America (http://www.invasive.org). If rainbow trout are allowed access into the middle Credit River, there are concerns that competition between young rainbow trout and brook trout and Atlantic salmon will have negative impacts on these native species.”
Management objectives for Atlantic Salmon 2. prevention of competition with introduced species such as rainbow and brown trout;
Brown trout are known to negatively compete with native brook trout. More recently, this species has been considered as invasive in the province of British Columbia and states of New York and California.
Management Objective: Permit and encourage harvest of brown trout, with no size restrictions, in the middle and upper Credit River where this species overlaps with brook trout and Atlantic salmon range. Continue to pass brown trout above the Streetsville Fishway and restrict further access beyond the Norval Dam all year round. Supplemental stocking of brown trout in the main Credit River below Norval is supported unless range overlap with resident species-at-risk, such as Redside Dace, is discovered. Should this situation arise, supplemental brown trout stocking will be discontinued.2. Fact: Steelhead stocking in the eastern end of lake Ontario was discontinued by the MNR due to the perceived smolting of rainbow down the St. Lawrence establishing naturalized runs of steelhead on the east coast. The reports mention genetic testing done that confirmed 50% of the fish were ganaraska strain which means they could come from any MNR stocked steelhead or natural fish from the ganaraska itself. Other sources of steelhead on the east coast were confirmed from the salmon river and other NY stocked fish. Atlantic salmon can just as easily travel down the st. Lawrence and interfere with existing native populations on the east coast.[/i]
Jon, All true and I don't disagree with any of your points.
BUT to my knowledge, the Credit River FMP is a combined effort of many agencies and organizations.
Trout Unlimited, Credit River Anglers, the Sir Issac Walton Group, Credit Valley Conservation Authority, Ontario Federation of Anglers & Hunters, OMNR just to mention a few.
This is the original plan in 2002.
http://www.creditvalleyca.ca/wp-content ... mtplan.pdf Now we also have the FMZ16 council involved.
The aim is to protect the native brook trout in the upper portion of the Credit.
Huge water shed. All the way to Orangeville from Port Credit.
http://www.creditvalleyca.ca/wp-content ... -Zones.pdfThis is the jurisdiction under FMZ16 and nothing to do with the FMZ20 but we are aware of what is happening. So we sacrifice a few browns to protect and provide a better brook trout fishery. Take away the Atlantics and it would still be part of the FMP for the Credit.
I and a lot of other anglers are not worried with the direction of the Lake management.
Al
Al it goes beyond just sacrificing a few browns to save the brook trout, the plan mentions ceasing all stocking of browns in the whole river if they are found to be negatively effecting redside dace. So a minnow species is now going to take precedence over the migratory browns? That's how the report reads to me anyway. The steelhead lift over norval has been capped by mnr at 600 this year which I'm told is down from previous years. The plan also mentions that if norval cannot act as a barrier to other steelhead migrating upstream then the streetsville dam downstream will become the new lift barrier which would cut out quite a bit of spawning habitat.
I hardly ever fish the credit but this has wider implications across the province. You say that if the lake trout restoration program was not put in place we would have no funding for lamprey controls because it's a native species. My question is why does that matter, why when anglers contribute 2.4 billion dollars to the provincial economy each year do we only get lamprey control to sustain lake trout which is not the most heavily targeted species. Why can't we speak up and take a bit more control over OUR fishery, we as anglers contribute the most why shouldn't we get funding to control the lamprey population or to stock the fish we want. The American angling community seems to get it, they seems to have a much greater say in what goes on. The money NY puts into the fishery is staggering compared to ontario and with a city like Toronto sitting on the shores of the lake why can't we do the same. Look at the public access rights the state buys to allow all anglers equal access to the fishery, they treat it like a tourist attraction why can't we do the same?
NY stocks their browns three times the weight of our fish and twice the number, I read reports on Lake Ontario United everyday of 20, 30, 40 fish days, that would be nice to have here. They stock their fish by barge at night to reduce cormorant predation and have cormorant population controls in place to protect their fishery. Sorry for the rant it just blows my mind and gets my temper boiling, we need to step it up as a community.