TOPIC:

www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1988-...803280484-story.html

Brother Nature,,, remember this???????

I remember that well. Quite a buzz about it at the time. 50lb+ kings.
I dont remember if anyone ever caught one or not, but I do remember it didnt work.
Or at least the premise of huge kings never happened.

yep, I remember reading about this and thinking about those huge kings. I never did hear any reports either Mike. Always wondered what had happened.

I was just thinking about the triploid program the other day. Thanks for sharing this. Unfortunately, a couple of things bubbled up at the time the triploids were present in the lake.

First, at the same time the T-kings were growing into their 4th and 5th years was the same time Bacterial Kidney Disease was working it's way through the lake. Remember seeing those spring kings swimming lethargically just under the surface and the spring king fishing going from super to nearly non-existent.

By the time the fish-heads got a grip on the BKD and started remedial action the zebra mussels were becoming established and the alewife decline was starting, cuts to king stocking was being considered, it seemed improper to continue stocking fish that would be a further drain on the baitfish populations. One more deciding factor was the expense. The Michigan DNR hadn't had any increase in license fees for years and their bank account was running on empty. "Frivolous and unproven" programs went by the wayside.

This brought up another "historical" memory. Everyone remembers the excellent king fishing over by Michigan City/St. Joe this spring. It used to be like that every spring and from St. Joe right around to South Chicago. Many days during the Pepsi Contest we'd head out and only put out four lines - all J-Plugs on downriggers so we'd not catch any cohos. We could easily catch our 10 or 15 fish (I was only running a 16 footer at the time) and they would be almost all kings. This would last from mid-April to early May.

Wouldn’t it be neat if history could repeat itself and that kind of fishing could be the norm instead of the aberration? Think of the new interest and monies that could pour into the fishery and the local economies? If even half that good it would be remarkable.