TOPIC:

Great Lakes Salmon Initiative
14 hrs ·
Last week on Tuesday was the Lake Michigan Citizens Fishery Advisory Council Meeting. There were many issues brought up and in the forefront was fishing stocking numbers and movement. We will provide later in the week a couple of posts to provide you with the data presented and an explanation of all the options. There is quite a large amount of data that is going to be presented to the public, starting this weekend at the Michigan Charter Boat Assoc. conference so much so that it will require a couple of posts. The final decision will be made in January on final planting numbers and locations. This may seem like a long time but the GLSI has been instrumental in getting the MDNR to recognize the importance of including the public in decisions and policy making.
The native self sustaining agenda that is being pushed on the Great Lakes by the feds sounds like conservation but is much closer aligned with preservation, a look but don't touch attitude towards our fisheries. As a reminder, the GLSI represents ALL businesses, communities, recreational and charter anglers on a lake wide management basis and connecting waterways. At the Advisory meeting the GLSI has a voting member representing this idea, goal and our mission. Many other representatives are voting to selfishly represent a single port or organization with an objective to protect their interests only. We are pointing this out to remind you what the GLSI is about while trying to work with the MDNR on the entire lake wide management and on future posts this week please keep this in mind. In the proposals there are ports that may lose stocking of a species but gain in 1 or more other species. I posted this picture of a successful day out of Ludington this summer on purpose because it does not represent the fishery accurately. Yes, there are a lot of fish hanging there but that is not the norm for Ludington or any port. The proposals are looking from total fish numbers and a status quo stocking plan to a lake wide balanced fishery based on lake capacity, survivability, natal reproduction and economics. We will provide you the proposals this week because the DNR is going to be taking the plan to the public, LMC etc. and it's important that anglers receive and give input. We will also provide the venues in which the DNR will introduce this info as it is scheduled allowing everyone to learn and understand the proposals