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Started out about 10:30 am at EC. Washed lures for 2hrs in dirty water with 2 fish for our efforts. Pulled lines and slogged down to Gary. Started setting lines just outside the lighthouse. Got the sixth rod out and immediately hooked up. Twenty minutes later we had the lines pulled and 10 fish in the box. J-11’s and Thinfins, didn’t matter.

Nice! Glad to hear the action is still good at gary light after that blow

That fish in his right hand is one of the cohos planted in the St. Joe last spring. Have an adipose clip (but no coded wire tag) They are doing extremely well and we've seen great survival from them. I caught one in Michigan City yesterday too

Great to here Ben. I think they raised the coho numbers planted in st joe?

We still target 60,000 so not technically a numbers increase- but they are stocked as 8 inch yearlings in the spring, rather than 5.5 to 6 inch fall fingerlings in October/November. We shuffled around some things in the hatchery to keep them around a bit longer to achieve the bigger fish

That way they are larger, more fit, don't have to survive overwinter in the predator gauntlet, and find enough food to get big enough to journey out to the lake

Results are extremely promising so far. Hard to really say how much of it is because coho are doing well lakewide, but some of it is definitely from the bigger yearling fish being stocked

I'd like to be able to do it for all of our other cohos, but the hatchery space is maxed out, so to achieve that we'd have to cut something else at this point

So is the main predator for 6" coho Lake Trout? I've never caught anything with baby Coho, or any trout or salmon, its belly. What other species is the hatchery raising?

Ben, I wouldn’t have noticed the clip if you hadn’t mentioned it. Just not in the habit of checking coho. I didn’t even know they were being clipped. I wish the collective DNR’s would publish a list for Lake Michigan clips. I’ve seen some interesting clips on steelies, including what looked to be dorsal clips on a couple fish in Trail this winter.

S.O.L., Birds (cormorants and others) are probably the biggest consumers, but the creeks and rivers are also home pike, bass, catfish, walleye, brown trout, dogfish, etc that gobble up the stockers. In the lake, the cormorants are still out there, they dive down to something like 60 feet to feed. Lakers and I’d suspect browns would be at the top list for predators in the lake as far as fish are concerned, but I’d put my money on the birds causing the most damage.

I pan fished a rather small lake last spring maybe 30-40 acres I watch three commorants dive down and come up with some BIG GILLS AND CRAPPIES I watched them do this for a few hours kept thinking after they ate one they be gone but nope they kept at it

Thanks for the info Ben. St joe river is home to tons of predators so that makes sense. I remember walleye opener last yr on the Joe. I have to maze my way around 50 + boats to get out to the lake.

southshore wrote:

Ben, I wouldn’t have noticed the clip if you hadn’t mentioned it. Just not in the habit of checking coho. I didn’t even know they were being clipped. I wish the collective DNR’s would publish a list for Lake Michigan clips. I’ve seen some interesting clips on steelies, including what looked to be dorsal clips on a couple fish in Trail this winter.

S.O.L., Birds (cormorants and others) are probably the biggest consumers, but the creeks and rivers are also home pike, bass, catfish, walleye, brown trout, dogfish, etc that gobble up the stockers. In the lake, the cormorants are still out there, they dive down to something like 60 feet to feed. Lakers and I’d suspect browns would be at the top list for predators in the lake as far as fish are concerned, but I’d put my money on the birds causing the most damage.

There is a comprehensive lakewide stocking database that has more info than you can shake a stick at! www.glfc.org/fishstocking/exactsearch.htm

Select however you want. Can even download to Excel if you want. All the clips are in there.


And yes, the river predators have the biggest impact on smolt survival. Between bass, pike, catfish, walleye, and a smattering of other fish, the smolts have to run a gauntlet of hungry mouths. Especially in the St. Joe. A little less so on Trail Creek and Little Cal systems, but there's still plenty of pike and bass and some walleye in the lower reaches to make a dent. Followed probably by birds as the fish are outmigrating to the harbors and pierheads and along the beaches

Smolts and lake trout aren't really occupying the same habitat at the same time to have too many interactions

Jay Wesley said we are losing around 40% to predators.