TOPIC:

Great Lakes Salmon Initiative

Kings are showing up in ports up and down the coast of Michigan and starting to improve in Wisconsin. And some monster fish, 30lbs has already been broken!! Coho are on the move and have heard reports of 10plus lb fish. Tackle busters are swimming out there with many fish in the 18 to 28lb range.....time to armor up for this year.

Lake Trout fishing has been ridiculous out of many ports. Ludington just south of the Project for example when fishing is hot 6 man limits in 1.5hrs is common. This week seeing more natural trout coming in, early last week I was getting 1-2 out of 10, on Friday I had 9 out of 11 natural. During the BKD era our trout creel catch was higher than last year but our catch rates are going up. We have not targeted trout for years and guys have had to learn to fish for them so catch rates are now going up. The State of Michigan harvest of Kings last year was 25K and Lake Trout was 98K. Lake Michigan exceeded fish community objectives of trout harvest and did not meet the fish community objectives for all trout and salmon species combined.

Had a conversation with the Lake Michigan Basin Coordinator Jay Wesley the other night just brain storming some options and talking weather, fishing reports and water conditions up and down the lake. I reported some anglers opinions on Brown Trout and we discussed goals for harvest percentages of browns planted. What is a reasonable percentage? 1-1.5%? Why are they not surviving well---lack of food when planted, too much predation by birds and fish, especially lakers? Can we concentrate all the fish to overcome the predator pit to 1 port?? Should we eliminate the brown program and focus monies and effort to other species and equivalencies? This is a very difficult topic, focus and discussion but one of many that has to happen to improve the overall fishery and long term objectives in the Strategic Management Plan. With all the increase in natal lake trout production, what is the difference between over production of Kings ten years ago naturally and the natural reproduction of lake trout now. Hopefully Michigan will reduce trout numbers and apply to equivalencies in other species like Chinook, Coho and Steelhead???

with all the discussion has any of the states or organizations brought up reducing limits or season on Great Lakes ?

So the harvest for trout exceeded the "quota?" Same thing happened in Traverse Bay and they cut the limits. Are the laker-lovers going to scale back limits in the over-quota areas? What about in the southern sector where many of us southenders fish.

Also, since the goby size and numbers are dropping, presumably from being gulped by lake trout, I would guess the amount of alewives in their diet is increasing and at what point will the increase in alewife eating will the natural reproduction start to drop. My guess, it won't be gradual, it will be precipitous and suddenly, there will be several year classes of natural lake trout missing.

Once the feds figure this out, we'll see how much they pay attention to the states or the lake committee when they decide how many hatchery trout to plant.