Here is the general recap for the ludington workshop meeting on the 9th.
Here are the highlights of the Management Update:
- Habitat Improvement: a reef was enhanced in Grand Traverse Bay that will be valuable for reef spawners such as lake trout, whitefish and cisco and will be used by walleye, smallmouth bass and other species. A fish elevator was constructed and is passing lake sturgeon and 20 other species on the Menominee River. The Lyons Dam on Grand River will finally be removed this summer. Plans continue for dam removal and habitat restoration in Grand Rapids and on the Boardman River.
-Two new invasive species found: Red Swamp Crayfish near Holland and New Zealand Mudsnail in PM River. Didymo or "rock snot" is a nuisance species found in St. Marys River.
-Forage base continues to be low. Evidence of decent year class of bloaters, yellow perch, and alewife. Will have to see how they survive. Gobies are still an unknown as they do not recruit to the sampling gear but are probably the most abundant bait out there.
-Chinook: no changes in stocking or regulations. Poor 2013 and 2014 year classes, so there will be 4 year olds and 1 year olds out there with few 2 and 3 year olds. This is the last year of Mass Marking of Chinook.
-Coho: no changes. Good run of jacks despite the low returns overall at weirs so might be good coho for this spring. May experiment with stocking fall fingerlings at various locations.
Steelhead: Stocking an additional 66,000 small yearling steelhead that will be spread amongst the Manistique, Manistee, and Rabbit (Kalamazoo) rivers. No regulation changes. A lot of cool research going on with steelhead including microchemistry to determine the stream origin of steelhead. Mass marking will more than likely begin in 2017.
Brown Trout: moving 100,000 out of Grand Traverse Bay and distributing them to ports from Petoskey to Manistee.
Lake Trout: Discontinued 550,000 fall fingerling stocking at multiple ports. Evaluating further reductions as approach rehabilitation strategy goals. Regulations may be changing in the north so keep an eye on web sites if that is the case.
Lakewide Harvest is down to 5.4 million pounds. Most of the harvest is still Chinook salmon followed by steelhead, lake trout, brown trout, walleye, coho, and yellow perch. For comparison, the lakewide harvest was 15.3 pounds back in 1985. Good indication that the lake cannot support the same number of fish.
Lakewide Commercial harvest went from 37.5 million pounds in 1985 to 4.3 million pounds in 2014. Harvest is mostly whitefish and lake trout.
Other species: walleye, smallmouth bass, and cisco continue to increase. Muskellunge may become part of the nearshore fishery around White Lake, Muskegon, Grand River, Mona Lake, and Lake Macatawa as stocked fish grow in size and recruit into the fishery. 30+ inch musky are now being caught in Lake Macatawa. These fish will do well on the abundant gizzard shad and freshwater drum in those areas.
Fish Division is developing a management plan for Lake Michigan. We have been stocking salmon for 50 years with no real plan other than to stock as many as we could for many years with major adjustments recently to balance the predator and prey numbers. We are developing a vision and goals for the lake and asked the participates if they aligned with our broad goal statements. Once we have this done, we can develop objectives and eventually get down to the actions or tactics such as stocking, regulations, habitat improvement, access, etc.
The meeting went about an hour over schedule and we appreciate everyone's participation and feedback.
