Summary Report from
"The State of the St. Lawrence Fishery" Workshop
Saturday, November 14, 1998

The buzzword was the "C" word at the "State of the St. Lawrence Fishery" workshop held Saturday, November 14 at the Cape Vincent Recreation Center, but the day's speakers kept the focus on sharing information, not discussing regulatory changes, with the audience of about 100 anglers and local community members. New York Sea Grant hosted the DEC, SUNY ESF, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, and local fishing organizations to provide valuable insight on the status of game fish species throughout the River system. With discussion of everything from angling efforts to water levels, alewife to zebra mussel, and cormorants in between, the workshop offered everyone attending a clearer picture of the issues in the St. Lawrence fishery.

Al Schiavone of the DEC described the Great Lakes Basin as a watershed of 200,000 square miles and 33 million people. The 4 environmentally distinct DEC management areas of the (US) St. Lawrence River make up 76,000 acres of that watershed: 46,000 acres in the 1000 Islands section; 12,000 acres from Chippewa Bay to Iroquois Lock; the rest in 2 other sections downriver from that. The most popular sportfish from a 1996 survey: bass, northern pike, yellow perch, and walleye (in order of time spent fishing for them), are spread out through the system with yellow perch and smallmouth bass abundant throughout, northern pike found mostly in the 1000 Islands, and walleye mostly downriver. Anglers spent $30 million coming to fish the St. Lawrence River in 1996, according to Mr. Schiavone. He acknowledged the environmental changes to the River in recent decades: the building of the Seaway, changes in primary (algae/plankton) productivity, increases in water clarity, zebra mussels, and cormorant abundance. However, in response to questions of fish stocking and cormorant control, Mr. Schiavone explained that the River was left as a "naturally sustaining fishery", with state intervention only to restrict cormorant nesting to Little Galloo Island.

Next, audience members from both sides of the River summarized the public concern regarding fish numbers. Guides John Swenholt of Wellesley Island and Russ Finehout of Clayton expressed frustration over the fishing status in the 1000 Islands, despite a perception that "negative publicity on the fishery would destroy what was left" of the sportfishing economy (which affected not only fishing guides, but the entire community). They supported several solutions to the problem of declining fish: a 24" size limit on northern pike, with one pole--or 3 tip ups--and 3 fish per angler per day; a bass season opening to coincide with Ontario's opening; a shorter season for pike; catch and release; yellow perch creels limited to 25-50 per angler per day; that fishing tournaments and derbies be discouraged, and that northern pike be stocked until their numbers improved. Mr. Jack Odett from the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters shared the situation across the border, including some Queens University research on reproductive success and availability of sportfish along the Canadian side. Representatives of the Canadian St. Lawrence Parks system had questions on regulations of the commercial fishery in the Mallorytown area after a non-commercial fish kill in a contractor's nets was witnessed.

Dr. Ed Mills of Cornell University next explained how exotic species in Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence established themselves in the native food chain and survived the River environment. For example, smelt and alewife, now an important part of Lake Ontario's food chain, came to the Great Lakes as exotic species, like zebra mussels and the similar, lighter quagga mussels which have not become as ready a food supply for the system. Dr. Mills warned that current regulations on ballast water discharge allowed for survival of organisms adapted to both salt and freshwater, and "refuges" for organisms in old ballast tanks when European freshwater is exchanged for salt water en route to the St. Lawrence. He said "the biggest thing the (mussels) have done is to turn on the lights"--to allow sunlight to penetrate the water to deeper depths. Dr. Mills' studies indicate that this may have affected where, and when, prey species like alewife and invertebrates move through their feeding cycle in the bays and deeper water, ultimately affecting how the larger fish survive. He recommended that the best way to combat exotic species was to contact your Congressman about regulation on ballast water in ocean going vessels.

After an overview of the IJC, International St. Lawrence River Board of Control and water levels regulation plan 1958D, and a discussion of the need for new level regulation criteria to include environmental and recreational interests by Tom Brown, former DEC regional director and Board of Control member, Dr. John Farrell of SUNY ESF presented his research on muskellunge and northern pike recruitment in the St. Lawrence. Comparing the St. Lawrence muskellunge to the timber wolf, Dr. Farrell pointed out the persistence of the fish through a number of changes to the River--including the threat of development and Seaway construction to its spawning habitat. Young and adult muskellunge numbers seem to be recovering since a rough time in the '70's and '80's, while research on "year classes"--fish that were spawned in the same year--of northern pike indicated that their reproductive success has been poor recently. Seining for young-of-the year pike and muskie in the past few summers has yielded fewer and fewer young pike leaving their nursing grounds, while young muskellunge of the same year are "strong". Dr. Farrell attributes the muskie success to the fact that muskellunge spawn later in the season than northerns, and can take advantage of "better vegetation" in shallower habitat, while northern pike require deeper water and emergent vegetation associated with higher water levels than can be achieved with current regulations. However, SUNY ESF and the DEC are experimenting with the possibility of establishing control structures on individual spawning marshes to manipulate water levels and create better spawning habitat for both species.

The State of the St. Lawrence fishery workshop was nearly half-over, and the message that both audience and speakers were getting across was this: Our fishery resources are declining…how do we bring them back? Luckily, the organization to speak next had already once addressed that same question and come up with an answer that seemed to work--for the St. Lawrence Muskellunge.

Save The River's Muskie Release program was created in 1987, with SUNY ESF, Ande Monofilament, FISH, Inc., and local anglers, to conserve the declining natural population of adult muskellunge in the St. Lawrence. Save The River offered an incentive program to reward anglers for returning trophy (often reproductive female) fish to the river while gathering catch information that could be useful for SUNY ESF life history and spawning research, or for special habitat designations by state agencies. With a first year response that has topped every other year of the program, anglers quickly made catch and release of muskellunge a "standard" that has endured. To receive the Muskie Release print, anglers in the 1000 Islands region and Great Lakes Basin have reported over 400 releases, with the average fish estimated at just over 45 inches. Although the majority of released fish are in the 44-47 inch range, reports of much larger muskie being let go assure a more sustainable population: SUNY ESF research shows that large muskie are almost exclusively egg-laying females (according to Dr. John Farrell). Save The River's Muskie Release program owes its success to the sportfishing industry: the fishing supply stores, local guides and fishing outfits, and the anglers themselves, for promoting the catch and release ethic that has helped support the healthy sport muskellunge population--and reproductive population-- that exists today.

The next speakers discussed their research of warmwater fish species in sections of the Lake Ontario/St. Lawrence system. Tom Eckert of NYSDEC said that smallmouth bass are the most abundant species in nets set in Lake Ontario, though their numbers have declined since the late 1980's. Young smallmouth bass usually have a 70% chance of surviving to adulthood, depending on their growth rate--Mr. Eckert said that the Lake bass fishery is not limited by its food supply. Yellow perch are also declining in Lake Ontario even though their reproductive success has been good lately. Walleye may be thriving due to predation on bass and perch; and even a few sturgeon have been caught this year. Mr. Eckert said that research into adult fish survival indicate that overexploitation is not the problem with declining bass--that "something is happening between the fingerling stage and the legal stage". Apparently, this something is over and above the natural causes that contribute to the expected 90% loss of bass fry.

Al Maithers of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources described his department's fishery research: gill nets, creel surveys, and eel ladder counts give the Canadians their recent trends in yellow perch, smallmouth bass, and northern pike. Mr. Maither's research indicates that fish are not limited by their food supply, but age distribution of smallmouth bass and northern pike show that recent "year-classes" (surviving fish fry) will not contribute much to the overall population as they grow up--there just aren't enough of them. Mr. Maithers said that the OMNR's approach to addressing the fishery was "to recognize the decline in fish numbers, proceed with management actions, and consult with the public".

Russ McCullough's NYSDEC netting surveys count about 34 different fish species in the 1000 Islands section of the St. Lawrence, with yellow perch, pumpkinseed, rock bass, smallmouth bass, northern pike and bullheads dominating in that order on the US side. Most of these are also in declines; bullheads most dramatically, pumpkinseed not really being impacted other than for sampling difficulties--their habitat is more heavily vegetated than usual. Again, northern pike and smallmouth bass numbers show that fish are disappearing in early life, although recent slower growth in pike is making them vulnerable to predators longer, indicating a food problem.

The Lake St. Lawrence area of the river was addressed by Steve LaPan of the DEC, where frequent and dramatic fluctuations in water levels so close to the control structures create wetland habitat problems. The vast difference in flows and physical features of this section of the river contributes to major differences in the fishery. Smallmouth bass and northern pike grow faster there, and the perch fishery is doing well. Walleye are more available than smallmouth bass and recent year classes make Mr. LaPan optimistic for their future. Relicensing procedures for the Robert Moses Power Dam have made it clear that the NY Power Authority must take responsibility for the "environmental perturbation" that the dam has caused in the immediate area--which may mean funds to perform habitat reconstruction and mitigation before the license expires in 2003.

At the end of a day filled with questions and comments that hinted or shouted "Cormorants", Clif Schneider of the NYSDEC presented a biography of the federally protected migratory bird, as well as a glimpse of a promised 1998 report series on cormorant impacts to the fish population. The cormorant, though not "exotic", was first reported to be nesting on the Great Lakes in the 1930's, and then flourished again in the 1980's. There are 9 islands in Lake Ontario/St. Lawrence River that are home to cormorant colonies; the birds travel within 15-20 miles of those colonies to feed. Mr. Schneider compared bass numbers to number of cormorant nests over the decades; the bass showed a general decline since the late 1970's while the number of nests climbed during the same period. A brief fall in nests corresponded to an alewife crash in 1994. Mr. Schneider said that recently, bass numbers have fallen beneath previously recorded lows. Cormorant diet studies revealed that the birds are eating more and more fish: from 68.1 million fish in 1993 to 128.5 million fish in 1997. On average, 41.4% of those fish were alewife, 20% were yellow perch, and 1.1% were smallmouth bass.

Because the 1998 reports from the DEC are not due until December 15, Mr. Schneider could not reveal any of their findings. However, they will include: a recent creel census, diet analysis of walleye, cormorant predation on salmonids, zebra mussels and nutrient levels, and smallmouth bass mortality vs. cormorant predation.

Save The River greatly appreciated the opportunity to take part and learn from this workshop, and looks forward to inviting several speakers back to the 1999 Winter Environmental Weekend to discuss these issues further.