The reason Wisconsin stocks a disproportionate amount of kings compared to other states now is that the last go-round of cuts they elected to drastically slash their brown trout stockings and I believe reduce some steelhead as well to retain some of their chinook stockings. The Lake Michigan Committee agreed that individual states could achieve stocking cuts using multiple species if they desired, as long as they did not exceed the overall stocking quota agreed upon.
Ben I’m very positive they did cut some brown trout and steelhead but not over large numbers but allso cut 400000 lake trout. Michigan took those lake trout and stocked them in deep water probably as a slap in Wisconsin’s face for going against what everyone else was doing. I agree with you I don’t want any of our silver fish cut by an big numbers. You guys have done a great job with the steelhead and lake trout it’s something to be proud of. But we have plenty of lake trout that will be self sustaining. I am no biologist and don’t follow stocking to the tee. Can we cut all lake trout stocking and stock the Appropriate amount of kings to make the difference. I think I’ve heard it’s like 4 greasers to 1 king? I would be willing to bet most anglers would be for it. I personally believe there is a storm forming in Indiana there are a lot of unhappy fisherman.Some charter captains are starting to speak publicly on there feelings. I do not think we need to just do what ever we want science has to back the decisions. If our number is 60000 kings that’s what it is. We need to do something different, if what we are doing now is not working. No need to let good money go to bad but the answer is definitely not “no kings”. Why does indiana not try net pens and get our own data instead of using someone else’s data. I am also willing to bet if Dnr is willing to put in the effort there are a lot of people willing to help for free if Dnr did not have the resources. Don’t we lose a large percentage of our fish just after they are released to birds? Common sense tells me net pens would help leaps and bounds with that especially in a harbor or marina. In other words I believe things need to change.
Michigan agreed to take those lake trout on a temporary basis, since they were already raised and slated to be stocked prior to the decision to cut... not sure how that is a slap in the face, it was actually doing Wisconsin a huge favor. They were going to be planted somewhere in the lake, and Michigan did Wisconsin a huge solid by taking them on paper. They functional ecological impact of whether they were stocked 1 mile on either side of an imaginary line in the middle of the lake is the same. But that way Wisconsin got to keep their kings.
And I would call their brown trout reductions significant - between 350,000 and 400,000 brown trout reduction.
There are no lake trout stocked in Indiana anymore, so we can't cut lake trout to add back kings. We've already eliminated them. Oddly enough, we have gotten complaints about that, too.
Lakewide there are only something like 300,000 lake trout outside the treaty waters, which are court-mandated to be planted. Those are all stocked in Illinois now
In terms of bird predation, as I believe I outlined in my post above, net pens do not help alleviate bird predation for fish stocked upriver, like we do in Trail Creek and the Little Cal. Net penning helps eliminate immediate predation on disoriented harbor-stocked smolts by birds. Since we are not harbor stocking, that point is moot. The fish coming out of the river are acclimated to the new environment and leave at their own discretion, just like they would from a net pen. Terns, mergansers, and to a much lesser extent cormorants, are going to get some level of smolts once they migrate out to the harbors, regardless of if you net pen them first just upstream from the harbor.
I'm not sure what else to say, Bill. You say that you want science to back decisions, but then argue for common sense and want things to change, despite evidence and professional opinion that net pens aren't going to alleviate smolt predation issues.
What has to change is that we have to let the stocking cuts run their course, build bait back up, and then be able to increase stocking. We've said that is our hope throughout this entire process. With all the reports of how much bait people are seeing, and the excellent fish size and fishing for most of the year, I would hope that more people see that there have been positive effects and hope for the future, and that maybe lake managers knew what they were doing after all.
IN terms of things changing and passion for kings, we made a very purposeful and thought out decision to stock the entirety of the kings in one location for a given year. That was done with smolt predation in mind - if there are a large number of smolts outmigrating together, there's only so many that can get eaten by a fixed number of predators. You basically overwhelm them and have less overall predation. That's why baitfish school, right? We believe that if we split up the stocking into several small stockings, we'd see a higher proportion of smolt mortality as a result. We also eliminated some poorly performing fall fingerling skamania and are slightly increasing to 70-75K kings moving forward, which isn't a huge increase but it's something.
