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Lickety-Split wrote:

Great information Ben thanks! I have a question. If bait was to was to shrink to the point were Indiana was say 2014-2017 time frame, would the kings we see in the spring time be less then we see when bait is up? Or would it stay the same? 

Like anywhere in the lake, chinook abundance is almost 100% tied to bait abundance. In terms of greatest number of kings available for the Indiana fishery, we'd be best served to reduce stocking in order to keep bait populations high, and enjoy the higher number of wild chinook (which are about 70% of chinooks caught in Indiana, even though they are produced in northern Michigan streams) and stockings from Wisconsin and Michigan. And of course, higher bait populations tend to lead to better survival of fish we do stock

pardytime58 wrote:

Several years ago, I think in the late 90s I caught a tagged fish Out of east Chicago I called the number on the tag and it had been caught and tagged up by the Mackinac Bridge by researchers the next day they drove down from Mackinac and paid me $100 to retrieve the microchip inside the fish.

A few years ago someone caught a tagged Atlantic Salmon near Gary that had been stocked in southern Lake Huron

It's pretty amazing how fish travel. I guess it shouldn't be too surprising given they are native to the Pacific and travel thousands of miles during their lifetime in the ocean. But still very cool .

Nearly all of the chinooks stocked into northern Lake Huron actually migrate into Lake Michigan to feed, so our management treats them as functional Lake Michigan fish. 

Approximately 10-15% of the chinook caught in Lake Michigan are Lake Huron-stocked fish. And has typically been as many or more as Indiana-stocked fish recovered in Indiana. 


 

I wish I could find the paperwork they sent me, but I recall the fish averaged 45 feet deep and stayed in 55° water. I caught him 45 feet down on a chrome, bumper and green crinkle how fly. And actually now that I think about it, it was early 2000s not late 90s. 

pardytime58 wrote:

I wish I could find the paperwork they sent me, but I recall the fish averaged 45 feet deep and stayed in 55° water. I caught him 45 feet down on a chrome, bumper and green crinkle how fly. And actually now that I think about it, it was early 2000s not late 90s. 

Pretty good memory... There was a study during that time frame (1998-2001) with digital storage tags. Here's a couple articles that mention the study, and even the $100 reward.

www.fishchallenger.com/Docs/THELASTFRONTIER.pdf

www.fishchallenger.com/Docs/Depth_Is_No_Barrier_For_Kings.pdf


On another note... these articles are a great example of how the fishery in the south end is very, very different from the rest of the lake. We simply don't have the water depth for kings to easily access deep water, which many times of the year they are preferring, especially for overwintering alewife in deep water, and during the summer when shallow water is too warm for chinook. We're heavily reliant on a "perfect storm" of water conditions and bait availability at the right times to hold kings down here in the summer