TOPIC:

Wow, was that tough. Salmon made one of their poorest showings ever in the
Classic. But, in tournament fishing its not about how bad the fishing is
but catching more than the next guy.

Congratulation to 2015 Hoosier Coho Club Classic champions Flat Out
(Pro), Nail Bender Too (Am) and Plane to Sea (24U).

Complete results are on the Classic page at www.hoosiercohoclub.org. A
News-Dispatch recap is below. And, how about one more time for the
sponsors, also listed below.

The Carl A. Hartman Memorial fishing contest on May 1 attracted 36
entrants and paid out three places based on total weight of five fish. The
winners were 1. Flat Out 59.7 pounds; 2. Uncle Bud 57.3; 3. Salmon Hawk
56.6.

Lake Michigan biologist Brian Briedert will be the featured speaker at
the May 13 meeting. Indiana's steelhead stocking plan has been adjusted.
Brian has always been great about answering all angler questions.

Smolt outings are set for May 20 and June 16. They're free for youth age
13-18 provided they properly fill out the Smolt's membership form (see
Membership at www.hoosiercohoclub.org) and get it mailed in well ahead of
the outing dates. Available spots are filled on a rotation basis. Thanks
Mark Marz (MCHS Fishing Club director) and Bill Wiesemann (Cloud Nine
charters) for coordinating the youth outings. The MCHS youth had a great
time aboard Cloud Nine in the Classic.

The LaPorte Co. Tourism Bureau's big, free Coho Capital Derby is on and
continues through May 31. Up for grabs are $100 for the largest salmon and
trout caught each week plus an additional $500 for both the largest salmon
and trout caught overall during the five-week contest. Complete rules are
at www.michigancitylaporte.com (search Coho Capital Derby).

CCD awards and a fish fry are set for the June 10 meeting.

The Michigan City Weather Buoy is in operation and online at
uglos.mtu.edu/station_page.php?station=45170, Operated by Purdue
University via Indiana-Illinois Sea Grant the site puts real time wind,
wave and water temperatures at your fingertips.

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From the Michigan City News-Dispatch:

It was so bad, the winner fished the other side of Lake Michigan.

That's the punch line to a inglorious question of how the local fishing
was during the 41st annual Hoosier Coho Club Classic held in Michigan City
on May 2-3..

Dave Baker and crew aboard Flat Out flattened the competition by snaring
limits from the shadow of the Chicago skyline on Saturday and Sunday.

The Leland, Mich., captain claimed $10,000 for the Pro division title and
the prestige of winning the longest-running tournament of its kind on the
Great Lakes.

"We knew the fishing was tough (locally), and Ian Stewart (former
Michigan City captain who runs a fleet of charters in Chicago) provided
some great info.," Baker said. "We fished Navy Pier three straight days
and it worked out."

The "three straight" is Flat Out also won the May 1 Hartman Memorial, a
five-fish shootout which was good for another $1,200.

Underscoring the poor fishing near Michigan City were a paltry six limit
catches (10-fish per day) recorded by the 66 Classic teams in two days.
And all six of those hauls were made at Navy Pier in Chicago - two by Flat
Out and four by Pro teams which followed the big black boat on the second
day.

Making the 60-mile round trip was a risky move given the short, six-hour
fishing periods each day. Flat Out, a 58-foot Donzi, which reportedly can
run 50 mph, was more than up to the task.

Of note, those four other Pro boats which ran to Navy Pier on Sunday
finished in the top five behind Flat Out.

The Amateur and 24U (small boat) divisions were decided in more
traditional manner.

Nail Bender Too, captained by John Messina of Glenview, Ill., zeroed in
on a pack of kings in 50 feet of water off the Pink House (landmark three
miles west of MC) on Sunday to capture the first place Am trophy and
winnings which included a $2,500 Simrad electronics unit and $1,000. Nail
Bender also won the 2006 Classic.

Steve Qualizza of Valparaiso and crew aboard Plane to Sea won the $1,200
top prize in 24U by catching the obligatory three lake trout each day in
deep water, then scraping up three coho each day outside the Donut
(landmark eight miles west of MC) in 50 feet of water.

The Classic tournament paid back five places in each division.

In spite of the spotty fish catching, sunny skies and calm seas made for
a great weekend on the lake. And as always, the Hoosier Coho Club
volunteers performed wonderfully in hosting the Michigan City Summer
Festival event.

Your Indiana Lake Michigan biologist Brian Briedert will be the featured
guest at Wednesday's (May 13) meeting, 7 p.m., 121 Skwiat American Legion
Ave., Michigan City

Indiana's steelhead and coho stocking program is being rearranged and
there has been a Chinook accident at one of the hatcheries. Get the scoop
straight from your biologist.

And Brian has always been great about trying to answer all questions
like... where are the salmon?...are there simply just fewer salmon in the
lake?...what about perch?...


Got a big fish? Could be worth some cash in the Coho Capital Derby going
on now through May 31.

The LaPorte Co. Tourism event is paying $100 for the heaviest salmon and
trout each week plus another $500 for the largest of each overall. Weigh
station is Lake Michigan Tackle, 1315 Franklin St., Michigan City, phone
872-3474. Complete rules are at www.michigancitylaporte.com (search Coho
Capital Derby).

Week 1 winners were a 13-pound, 13-ounce Chinook salmon caught by Larry
Richmann, Jr. of Michigan City and a 13-7 lake trout by Steve Holzkropf of
Batavia, Ill.

Thanks for posting Ed

Hatchery problem for Chinook? Don't we get those from Michigan? Sigh...Will we ever get some good news?

Thanks for posting.

Here's a bit of good news...the big trout winner of last week's Coho Capital Derby caught a laker weighing twice his age: 10-year old Roland Henderson of Seymour, Ind., pulled in a 21-pound, eight-ounce laker trout aboard Crorkindill.

You fellas missed a good meeting this evening. There will be a news letter coming out so will post that as I did not take note tonight.
The King hiccup was approx. 20,000 fingerlings died that were already wire tagged and in the truck ready for stocking. There was something like algae that clogged the airline so there wasn't enough oxygenated water to keep them going. Not good news!

Wish I could have made it. Sadly I am still trying to get to my first one. What is the typical turnout? Hopefully next time - this time I was held up with either food poisoning or the flu....ugh

Hey Jeff,

you got it also??? My wife was down most of last week with it, and I also had a touch of it. Nasty stuff.

Brian did a good job answering questions, some of those questions were pretty touchy. But he he took it all in stride.

There is much concern of course over the bait issue, and still not much in the stomachs of the coho. Even over by Navy Pier were the coho fishing has been the best, nothing in the stomachs. Bait in that area was supper thick to the point that you had to keep checking lines for foul hooked bait. Thought is that the magnum alewives that are spawning right now, may be to big for the small coho to readily eat.
The flip side is, we need a good spawn from these fish right now with only 2 major spawning year classes of alewives presently out there.

From The News-Dispatch...

Chinook Casualty
A truck load of Chinook fingerlings destined for Trail Creek died in route due to a clogged aerator line recently.
"It was 22,000 fish, accidental, human error, we're not hiding anything," Brian Briedert, Indiana's Lake Michigan biologist, said at the Hoosier Coho Club meeting on Wednesday. "It is troubling, especially because they were already tagged, had their coded wire implants."
Statistically, the loss is likely insignificant because Indiana's target stocking is 200,000 Chinook annually.
Briedert also noted there are fewer Chinook in the lake this spring, partly by plan and partly due to drought in the fall of 2012.
"Chinook stocking cuts (intended to balance with low alewife population) went into effect in 2013 (lakewide reduction from 3.3 to 1.7 million stocked)," Briedert said. "Additionally, in 2012 there were very poor salmon returns (to natural spawning areas in Mich.) due to low water conditions and the number of wild Chinook dropped way off, and it used to be 60 percent of the fish (total Chinook caught) out there."
"Those Chinook are the seven to nine pounders that are missing from the catch this spring. We're seeing the big 14 and 15-pounders and the small fish, but little in between."
Also on the stocking front, Indiana released just 47,000 coho this winter due to a disease problem as eggs hatched. Indiana normally stocks 240,000 coho. The impact of the shortage will be seen in 2016. The Indiana stream fishery will take a hit, but the lake fishery should see little change as the other Lake Michigan states met their coho goals and the majority of all coho stocked around the lake end up along Indiana's shoreline in early spring.
DNR personnel acted quickly to fill the coho void at the hatchery by raising an additional 134,000 Skamania. The number of fall-release fingerlings (undersized) was boosted from 50,000 to 184,000, so there should be a bunch of extra steelies showing up in the catch, starting in 2016.
Steelhead and coho stocking schedules have been tweaked for the future, too. The goal is to produce more large coho and steelhead for the St. Joseph River, which has had poor returns of smaller sized fish. Trail Creek came out ahead in numbers of steelies stocked. Complete information about the new stocking order is at www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/files/fw-lake_mi...stocking_changes.pdf

Thanks for the updates gentlemen