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Flapper Charter Service auction of fishing gear plus some trapping, hunting is Sat.: go to
www.auctionzip.com type in Auctioneer ID# 10069, look for Jeff & Nancy Smith Auction



Fish On! Outdoor Show at Portage High School on Sat, Sun. see www.portageinchamber.com


Continued, grim news on lake michigan prey fish...
jsonline.com: www.jsonline.com/story/sports/columnists...k-stocking/98241308/

Mike, thanks for posting Paul Smith's article, I was coming here to do that this morning

Good news about bloaters increasing, but bad news about alewife. Still getting eaten at an unsustainable rate. The only solution we have is to seriously back off stocking of multiple species (yes, even lake trout and probably steelhead too...), but we saw what happens politically when that is proposed, so I am not optimistic on that front.

Unless we get some serious help from mother nature, I fear the latest go-round of cuts will not have nearly the impact they should on increasing baitfish populations.

Sounds like we are at that point of...make decision now to slash stocking considerably all species or Ale population is going under. Which in turn will put more pressure on other prey fish stocks which = lake huron type of salmon population down the road.

Just stock COHOs. They only eat alewives for six or seven months of their life, then they die and they don't naturally reproduce.

Any comments?

Would love to stock more cohos... reliable spring fishery, can still find in the summer, good stream fishery, don't rot immediately like kings once they are in the tribs... they are great.

Issue is that there's no space and stocking more cohos means giving up steelhead. Well, and the fact that we do not have the infrastructure to hold coho broodstock to take our own eggs. So at the mercy of other states to get eggs. We have been shorted a couple times in the past few years on that front.

I have a few hunches and if they are confirmed with actual data from steelhead mass marking, it would be logical to eliminate a couple poor steelhead stockings and replace them with cohos

Brother Nature, I agree. Sensible stocking for Indiana would mean more coho. One of the lowest on eating the ales. Good eating fish also. I believe that they only consume around 15-18% ales to make up their diet. Save more alewife and still have numbers of fish for all to catch. Sounds like a +++++++++++++++

Good thinking, Ben. I knew there's a reason to like you!

Can't you get the parent cohos you need at the lamprey barrier or are they not yet ripe enough when they get that far up the crick?

Yes to both of those questions - yes, we could get the coho at the Barrier (or at South Bend) but the problem is cohos run well before they are ripe, so they need to be held in a hatchery raceway for a few weeks until they are fully ripe. And we do not have that space