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We hope you are all having a great fishing season. August is the biggest month for salmon fishing and the bite is very good right now, especially on Lake Michigan.  Activity here at the GLSI always slows down in July and August for 2 reasons. There is not much going on regarding fishery management at this time of year and our all-volunteer board of directors are spending all of our free time fishing.  I'll share a few pics from our trips, there are more on our Facebook page.

We have attended the new Tribal Co-Management Citizen Fishery Advisory Committee meeting in late June with no breaking news to report. A lot of effort is being made on catch reporting, tracking complaints and information sharing between the DNR and Tribal authorities. We appreciate the information sharing with anglers that will occur at this committee.


We will be at the upcoming Lake Huron Citizen’s Citizen Advisory Committee meeting in late August. The agenda is mostly focused on Saginaw Bay. We are monitoring the progress of the 2 commercial fishing bills, but both are not moving at all. We will keep you updated on that, and anglers will need to get involved and contact their legislators when these bills have committee hearing and if they get to the House of Representatives floor for a vote. We will let you know,  


We have amassed a great deal of support for our proposal for an optional trolling license to run up to 3 extra rods. These fishing organizations are supporting this proposal:
Northwest Michigan Fishing Club, Michigan Charter Boat Association, Detroit Steelheaders, Eastern Michigan Sportsman, Ludington Charter Boat Association, Hammond Bay Area Anglers Association, Arenac County Walleye Club, Bay De Noc Great Lakes Sportfisherman, Battle Creek Chapter of MSSFA, Bluewater Sport Fishing Association, Isle Royal Boaters Association, Manistique Area Sportfishing Club, Muskegon Charter Boat Association, Thunder Bay Chapter of MSSFA, Copper County Walleye Association, Michigan Spearfishing Association, Grand Haven Chapter of MSSFA, Hoosier Coho Club, Grand Rapids Chapter of MSSFA, South Haven Chapter of MSSFA, Holland Chapter of MSSFA, Thumb Area Charter Boat Association, Great Lakes Bay Region MSSFA, Pentwater Sportfishing Association, Manistee Sportfishing Association, State Board of Directors for the Michigan Salmon and Steelhead Fishing Association. If you are part of a fishing organization not on this list, please reach out and we would like to discuss it with you and ask for your formal support.


This effort is going to ramp up after the November election because not much gets done in the state legislature leading up to it. They are on recess now. The MDNR will also be moving forward with a fishing license restructure proposal around that time, and we are working to allow extra rods when trolling as part of the new license stucture. Our goal is to get this done for the 2025 fishing season. We will keep you posted on the timelines, and we will really need anglers to contact their legislators and NRC commissioners when this is actively moving forward.


Kings, coho’s and steelhead are running large this year, and anglers are bringing in some nice boxes of fish. There are 2 strong alewife year classes from 2021 and 2023 fueling our fishery. We are hoping for another strong hatch from this spring. One of our board members will be onboard for a trawling survey this year to get some first-hand knowledge of this year’s hatch. We will be reporting on that later. We want to remind everyone to turn in tagged heads to verify stocking success. The DNR prefers to stock fish at locations that show a good return and tagged head returns and weir returns are the way to evaluate that. Returning tagged heads is the best way to keep stocking going at your local port, especially in August when fish are returning to stocking sites.

We want to thank everyone who has renewed or joined the GLSI to help with our work. Here is a link to our membership page if you would like to support us. We appreciate it:    glsalmon.org/great-lakes-salmon-initiative-memberships/

We are wishing you tight lines and big boxes as we get into the peak of our salmon season. Good luck fishing!
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Thanks, Ed!