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msue.anr.msu.edu/news/what_will_lake_mic...glers_msg16_okeefe16

I read this article above in which a MSU biologist predicted an uptick in kings for Michiganders next year and into the future, blaming the last couple of down years on poor natural recruitment. Perhaps. Though it odd they (he) now can pin exactly how many wild kings go into the lake from MI streams. 1.4 million smolts in '13, 2.9 million in '14. First time I've ever seen exact numbers of wild fish used.

Anyway, according to the author those were down years and when things get back to normal - about 4.5 million - or top out in a boom year as in 2012 when 6.8 million wild fish were in the lake, the stocking reduction won't seem so significant - at least for Michigan.

I got the impression the author was using statistics to predict what was happening will happen. Sort of a like: 100 percent of all Americans eat carrots at one point in their life. !00 percent of Americans will eventually die. Obviously, eating carrots is a leading cause of death.

More to the point for us Southenders.

Look at the pie chart. Nose tags show where the stocked fish in Michigan originate. Ponder the numbers then ask why less than 1% of IN fish show up in their stats. Good grief, 9% come from Lake Huron and I'm not sure if they even stock fish over there anymore. Ony 2% come from IL but that's 3 times the IN number.

I'm sure IN hatchery-people do the best they know how to do. It makes no sense for them to raise the little kings and then just dump them willy-nilly and not hope each one lives and gets caught. But something is amiss. With the numbers we are getting in our fall runs it's almost like the little kings are flushed down the toilet with the hope they will make it through the sewage plant, swim to the lake and come back as adults.

The stocking numbers in IN used to be about 3X what they are now. Fall fishing was 10X what it is now. I don't know what's changed, where it's changed, what to change, but changes are needed.

Here are the pie charts for all states. Also, a search of the Great Lakes Fish Stocking database shows that the MI DNR stocked almost 700k chinooks in lake Huron in 2014. Here is a link to that database, you can search by year. www.glfc.org/fishstocking/rangesearch.htm

Agreed Mike, I have many concerns also.
First, wild kings. Everything I have been reading suggest that there are more wild kings produced by hatchery parents then wild kings produced by wild parents. If this is true, then as the different DNR agencies continue to drop the king numbers, we will also see less wild kings being produced.
Huron, sees stocking by Michigan DNR. They are stocked in Huron but are counted as Lake Michigan fish because they spend most of there time in lake Michigan waters until they make their return as spawners. Not sure thats fair but it is what it is. The 2 spots in Huron that get alot of kings is Strawberry and Swan. The numbers of stocked fish in these two spots are very large. The return of kings to these two spots are better then most other areas also.
Indiana, has been trying to get away from kings as you know for a long time now. The return of 60,000 fingerlings to Indiana(thanks Wisconsin) is small, but is better then the annoncement that Indiana wouldn't be stocking kings for the next 3 years.
Fall returns. What has changed over years is stocking locations. Imprint is everything. Remember the imprinting that went on in the old days when the kings were stocked into the port of Indiana? Harbor drops and stocking to close to the lake has taken our fall return numbers to the lowest its ever been. A good change would be to start working these fish into spots further up stream as far as they can take them. Imprint is everything. If we introduced these fingerlings to the upper stretches again as in days of old, imprint sucess would go way up. Are there some small streams that they could get into now that might allow some natural reproduction? Water has changed alot over the years. The streams are now producing other fish, crappie etc are coming back.
What has been happening? Stocking at Portage marina and now at Howe road is not getting us to the spot we need to be at.
At Howe road the water is shallow now and is tap water clear. In a matter of hours those fingerlings move down stream quickly. They find the dark water of the west branch and stay there were they end up imprinting. Hardly any fish move up the east branch with most moving up the west branch for fall returns. It certainly would be nice to see the king fingerlings being treated half as good as they used to be. I have no degrees, only like you years of being involved. We have seen what most will not. But, change is needed. I would ask Indiana to break away from the way things have been done. Lets make some positive changes to allow the fishery to be the best it can be. I see and read about what Wisconsin is doing for their fishery. The care is to be admired. Net pens, have proven themselves. Stocking at night to get away from the birds having a smolt feast. Indiana could learn a few things from others it appears. Sometimes just a shift in persons responsible brings in new ideas, and fresh blood usually trys something different then what has been standard practice. But, yes, change is needed. Question is will it happen??????
Indiana used to collect there own eggs years ago and another change is getting our eggs now from Michigan. If Indiana controlled the fish that they picked for egg and sperm collection, they could use just the fish that are later returning fish. Why is this a good thing? Because we could move our fish Indiana fish, could be moved to come in later then the rest. Later returning kings would return to colder water in the streams. Colder water helps with the oxygen content and would allow fish to move in and up with out being starved for oxygen like now when the water is warm. There is alot that could be done. It just takes breaking away from what isn't working.

I talked with the DNR Mr Price 2 weeks ago. He took over the program 5 years ago. Interesting, he told me there was a mortality problem in the hatchery. They were not treating the hatchery fish with iodine. Anyone who has done there research knows that this has to be done. The idea that this problem happened 5 years ago and for who knows how many years after, and considering this guy took over 5 years ago leads me to believe we suffered from his on the job training mistakes. The mistake of not treating with iodine. Skamainia have remained solid, but the salmon runs are horrible now. Something has to be done better to give us better results for what we have.

BLACKJAW wrote:

I talked with the DNR Mr Price 2 weeks ago. He took over the program 5 years ago. Interesting, he told me there was a mortality problem in the hatchery. They were not treating the hatchery fish with iodine. Anyone who has done there research knows that this has to be done. The idea that this problem happened 5 years ago and for who knows how many years after, and considering this guy took over 5 years ago leads me to believe we suffered from his on the job training mistakes. The mistake of not treating with iodine. Skamainia have remained solid, but the salmon runs are horrible now. Something has to be done better to give us better results for what we have.

Jay, I'd like to clear up a few things here.

1) Jeremy does not run the hatcheries. He's the North Region Supervisor and Indiana's LMC rep. Hatchery staff oversee each individual hatchery, and there is a separate hatchery supervisor, who has been on the job for a long, long time. Jeremy Price has nothing to do with the day to day running of hatcheries.

2) He was referencing treating with thiamine to avoid Early Mortality Syndrome. Not iodine (which is a separate thing, used to disinfect eggs)

3) There was a snafu in the supply of thiamine in ONE year, where it arrived too late to treat ONE species, coho.

4) there have not been any other issues with thiamine treatments since that one-time issue