An abundant 2024 year class of alewives could result in better fishing in Lake Ontario.
The recently released 2025 Lake Ontario Spring Preyfish Assessment contains statistics and other information related to alewife abundance.
The assessment provides vital data that fisheries managers take into account when adjusting hatchery salmon stocking levels.
Alewife are the most abundant prey fish species in Lake Ontario and support a multi-million dollar sport fishery.
2025 Lake Ontario Spring Preyfish Assessment Highlights:
Surveys indicated a very large year class of alewife produced in 2024 (measured as age-1 fish in 2025).
Adult alewife biomass decreased slightly from 2024.
Adult alewife biomass is predicted to increase in 2026 due to the large number of age-1 alewife present in 2025.
The survey captured more than 500,000 fish from 33 species with a total weight of more than 16,000 pounds.
Alewife were 85% of the total catch numerically. Yellow perch, round goby, deepwater sculpin, and rainbow smelt comprised 5%, 4%, 3%, and 1% of the catch, respectively.
In Canadian waters, a single large catch of small alewives strongly influenced alewife abundance estimates. At the Rocky Point transect, a bottom trawl captured 63,308 alewife, in 3.1 minutes of bottom contact time, most of which were Age-1 sized fish.
Lake Ontario Spring Preyfish Assessment
The final report of the 2025 Lake Ontario Spring Preyfish Assessment is available on the Great Lakes Fishery Commission website.
The spring prey fish bottom trawl survey began in 1978 and was collaboratively conducted by the USGS and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) in U.S. waters of Lake Ontario.
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