Lake Ontario Tributary
Anglers Council (LOTAC)

LOTAC would like to thank everyone that participated in our Second Annual Catch & Clean Tournament. on November 5th at Fox Hollow Lodge. Thank you to the entrants, donors, and Fox Hollow for allowing us to use their grounds as our tournament base. We had a successful turnout again this year that netted our little conservation organization over $2500. We are looking forward to using our earnings on projects in 2012 to help the betterment of the Lake Ontario Tributaries. We are also looking to make Catch & Clean III bigger and better.

We are an International Association comprised of Lake Ontario Tributary Anglers dedicated to the overall fishery improvement of all streams, rivers and creeks that flow into Lake Ontario.

LOTAC also recognizes that Lake Ontario tributaries are an integral part of the Lake Ontario ecosystem, supporting a viable and varied fishery capable of delivering maximum recreational value within a sustainable ecological framework.

We recognize the importance of Lake Ontario tributaries to the ecology of Lake Ontario and the tributary sport fisheries as a vibrant part of local and state economies. We believe that tributary interests are essential components of the fisheries management decision-making process and should therefore be better accommodated into the development of management policy that is fair and equitable to both tributary and lake interests.

L.O.T.A.C. Formation

LOTAC was created in the fall of 2007 when the entire Lake Ontario basin was struck with a severe drought causing record low water levels especially in the Salmon River Basin affecting all the Lake Ontario New York tributaries. These severe conditions resulted in a significantly reduced hatchery return of migrating salmon. This diminished return did not allow the state hatchery to collect enough eggs to maintain its stocking numbers in several of the Lake Ontario Tributaries the following year.

LOTAC also recognizes that besides natural cyclical threats such as a drought that there were other very real and issues that needed to be addressed regarding the fishery. These include Invasive Species concerns with Asian Carp entering the great lakes, Lamprey eels, and Didymo (Rock Snot). The Nestle Co. bottled water plant proposing to use the Salmon River Aquifer as a source for water production, and recent Wind Mill Proposal’s close to on Lake Ontario Shorelines possibly damaging bait / forage fish habitat.

We have also learned that the hatchery is not immune to disease or issues as well as there was a recent loss of 200,000 Salmon River Hatchery Chinook Salmon this past winter due to “mortality thiamine syndrome” which is caused by another invasive species of bait / forage fish called the Alewife. The Alewife is a bait fish whose oil causes a thiamine deficiency in the eggs of the adult fish causing very early death in fish fry. Some believe that the Alewife is the leading cause of the extinction of Atlantic Salmon in many of the Lakes in northern NY.

These conditions prove the need to try to improve the the Lake Ontario Tributaries that have historically been proven to maintain natural populations of migratory sport fish species such as Atlantic Salmon and Steelhead Trout and to increase their rearing capacities and develop a natural strain of wild fish supplementing the hatchery population.

Thank you for your help!