TOPIC:

The new team Southend Stakeholders will have their first meeting this next Tuesday evening May 6th. Will meet at the ike's in Portage where we have the spring workshop meetings. Time is from 6-8pm.
SouthEnd Stakeholders
Purpose: To create a team, between the Indiana Fisheries Representatives, the Lake Michigan Fisheries Representatives, and the Indiana Lake Michigan Stakeholders. To increase the teams knowledge of the Lake Michigan fishery. Team will meet 2-3 times a year at a central location.

We had a really good core group attend the opening meeting last night. The Stakeholders Team decided on how they will move forward as a group. A Trifecta leadership was agreed upon by all. With the Indiana fishing community having 3 stocking sites, it was decided to have the trifecta leadership. Captain John Warren will lead and represent East Chicago. Captain Mark Melton will lead and represent Portage. Carter Elenz will lead and represent Michigan City. BTW congrats Carter on the strong finish in the HCC tournament.
The team viewed a presentation from Paris Collinsworth Ill/IN SeaGrant that centered a little more on the south end of Lake Michigan. Some information was shared with the team from the Michigan Advisor meeting, showing the age of a 3 year old female king is continuing to shrink. The PPR will be run this summer and if forage continues to shrink, and king size continues to get smaller, Indiana may be at the table to talk about king cuts as early as next year. We desperately need a good LAKE WIDE spawn this year.

Good start Ed. For the first time meeting I feel it went well. I'm sure everyone still has lots of questions about just what will take place but that's life. You took the first step last night. Thanks

Thanks Tim I feel were off to a good start. Thanks for all your help!

Last night the Southend stakeholders team had their first meeting. We had a good core group turnout. One of the first items of business was to ask the team how they would like to move forward as far as a leadership roll for the team. Since we have 3 stocking sites it was mutually agreed that this Team would be best served with a trifecta leadership group. Capt. John Warren will take the lead for East Chicago, Capt. Mark Melton will take the lead for Portage and Carter Elenz will do the same for Michigan City. The team then watched a presentation provided by Michigan Seagrant. Paris Collinsworth from Ill/IN Seagrant provided information that linked this end of the lake a little more. I provided some information I gathered from the Michigan Advisors meeting. One item was a graph showing the steady decline in the average weight of a 3 year old female king. This summer the full information will be run thru the PPR. If bait still shows a steady decline along with king weight on decline, it's very possible that with out a good lake wide alewife spawn, we will be at the table talking about how many kings have to be cut. We desperately need a good alewife spawn this year. Next meeting for the Stakeholders Team will be late September.

Glad I could attend.

Bryan

I restored the original post - should be back.