TOPIC:

Was curious to see what your thoughts are if the lake was not stocked for the next 5 years?

What kind of fishery would we have?

Salmon would be all but gone thats for sure. Wild reproduction would eventually dwindle to nothing.

some stray kings and steelhead but mostly it would become greaser city I would believe.

You would have the greatest Laker fishery in the world. People Would travel from all around the world to fish. Millions of dollars would be coming in to ports around lake Michigan. Michigan CITY would be branded as Laker capital of the world.

In a few years the lake would revert somewhat back to what it was in the 60s. A lake filled with alewife perhaps to the point someone would come up with the idea of putting some salmon in the lake. The only thing which has brought so many lake trout into the lake was when they switched to a goby diet. The trout currently eat 95% of the gobies in the lakes each year which means mostly one an two year old gobies - little tiny things - are all that's there. That's why so many suspended trout are around this spring - they are eating alewife.
When the trout eat alewife, natural reproduction goes to zero. So, for a while, the trout will continue to grow larger, but no little trout will come into the population and once the biggies die of old age or are caught they'll be gone and the alewife will increase.
They won't reach 1960s levels due to the mussels, but they can still become the "predominant" species, probably to the levels where summer die offs become troublesome.

The current mentality of the feds, however, would likely never allow not stocking trout. They have been stocking them for 60 years and continued stocking them even when they knew they were banging their heads on the concrete. Many of the feds would rejoice to stop stocking any of the exotics. So yes, the lake would continue as a trout lake, but probably not from wild spawned fish.

So the big 3 would be kings, steel, and lakers. They are managing to naturally reproduce on a truncated alewife forage base. Strange how kings and steel both eat high amounts of alewife but are still finding a way to have natural production.
The coho that this end loves would be gone. Kinda shows where stocking is needed lake wide.
Michigan stocks 80% of the lakes coho, they take approx. 16-18% of the coho they plant.
Sure would make our fishery completely different then what we have today.
The alewife-- how long would it take to rebuild multiple years classes instead of what we have today. Average age for a adult alewife is 3 years old. They start to spawn at age 2. No more older alewife year classes of 5,6,7,8,and 9 year old alewife. A truncated forage base is not the best situation to have..

Did I read that right? Michigan fishers catch 16% of the coho they stock? That's amazing for two reasons. One, is though I've never seen any "official" speculation, it seems as though most of the stockings are considered great success if they yield 10% back to the fishermen. Other than coho in Indiana (many of them from the other states) I don't think Indiana hits 10% of any of the fish they stock.

Second surprise is most places in Michigan, fishing for cohos is like going to Erie and fishing for sheepheads. When there were lots of kings many anglers were upset to latch onto a coho. Even now, when kings are scarce most lines are set for kings. Get north of South Haven and I doubt one in ten boats would have an orange dodger and green crinkle fly on their boat.

BNature wrote:

Did I read that right? Michigan fishers catch 16% of the coho they stock? That's amazing for two reasons. One, is though I've never seen any "official" speculation, it seems as though most of the stockings are considered great success if they yield 10% back to the fishermen. Other than coho in Indiana (many of them from the other states) I don't think Indiana hits 10% of any of the fish they stock.

Second surprise is most places in Michigan, fishing for cohos is like going to Erie and fishing for sheepheads. When there were lots of kings many anglers were upset to latch onto a coho. Even now, when kings are scarce most lines are set for kings. Get north of South Haven and I doubt one in ten boats would have an orange dodger and green crinkle fly on their boat.

I think Ed is referring to percentage of lakewide harvest, not the return rate. E.g. Michigan stocks about 80% of the cohos lakewide but they only harvest 16% of the total cohos caught by all 4 states.