TOPIC:

I see currently, Michigan has collected enough eggs at the little Manistee weir for themselves and for Illinois. 
Currently, they're out of fish for Indiana. I know it takes a small number to satisfy our quota, just wondering if Ben is concerned or not?
It is getting pretty late in the run up that far, but here's hoping there's some late runners. 
They can leave the weir in place as long as it takes I believe.

I sat in a zoom meeting today with the Michigan Advisory board. Scott Heintzelman Michigan DNR reported that Indiana would be collected next week.

In a recent conversation with Mixsawbah, it was mentioned that they have asked for a substantial increase over last year to make sure they are able to make Indiana's quota. They came up short due to poor eye up. Wisconsin had enough to cover our shortage for last year

Michigan stocking numbers for 2025 will be the same as 2024.

Not trying to start a controversy but putting Indiana at the end of the line?  Severa things popped into mind:
*Why is Indiana last in line at the Michigan weir? 
*Why doesn't Indiana harvest their own eggs?
*If we are getting mid-October run parent fish (and presumably eggs from "late" run fish for several years) is it creating a late run "Hoosier" strain of kings?  Remember, the Skamania steelhead strain was created by selectively breeding the earliest "fall-run" arrivals at the Skamania hatchery, then selecting the earliest run of these offspring - repeat, repeat, repeat for several generations until these fish were making their run in early summer. Perhaps part of our now perennially "dud" fall runs occur because the Hoosier strain spawing run doesn't come in the same September-ish timeframe as it did in past decades.  
 

Mike, I looked at that scenario as the glass half full guy. I wish we could always be last in line and get the latest returning fish possible. Im a pier guy at heart and having a selected strain of chinook that didn’t run until now would be exactly what I’d ask for. Our fish have been trickling in for at least a month and a half now, but they just aren’t active due to water temps and the ones that are showing up now are moving straight on to spawning mode.

I have no data to back it up, but empirically speaking the skamania fish sure seem to be getting earlier and earlier in the few years since the egg take has been moved to Trail creek. I don’t know how much space or manpower it would take, but it would be the cat’s ass if we could massage the steelhead into a May/June “A run” and. September/October “B run” and have the bulk majority of the salmon showing up In October… a guy can dream.

Pretty good conversation with good points being made. Great questions. Bring this stuff to the spring meeting where all the appropriate folks will be at. I'm already attempting to put things together with the spring meeting being built around Lake Michigan Indiana.
Both hatcheries will be in attendance. Date has been set for Feb.15th.
It has been already around 5-6 years ago that I spoke with both of you gentlemen about Indiana possibly moving to an advisory Committee. Ben and his boss then B Price were ok moving in that direction. We almost got across the goal line only to be stopped by Indianapolis.
The spring meeting is only open meeting were we can bring items forward for discussion with the people that are directly involved.
Got questions about what is going on? Bring them forward.

Michigan (or Wisconsin) always fulfills their quota first from their fish, and then whoever is next in line gets them as they are available. Sometimes Indiana is 2nd in line, sometimes not. Sometimes Illinois gets them before, sometimes after. 

Indiana does not take chinook eggs because we don't have the infrastructure for it - you have to hold fish after they come in until they are ripe. We only have holding space for skamania in our hatchery.   It'd be millilons and millions of new infrastructure to design salmon egg taking station. We're struggling to upkeep our existing infrastructure, much less build new. And we have very generous partners who do this for us, free of charge. IMO it's a very wise use of public money....

Not to mention that even if we did have our own infrastructure, the return numbers over the last decade have been so poor that it's unlikely we would have had enough to fulfil our egg needs. We would probably have to stock all of our chinook quota in Trail Creek to even have a chance at collecting enough for egg needs reliably. Likewise for coho. Just off the top of my head, we probably wouldn't have been able to collect hardly any eggs of chinook or coho in at least 5 or 6 of the past 10 years, even if we did have the infrastructure

Other items mentioned in the Michigan Advisors meeting was the fact that almost all streams reported lower then normal water levels. And add in that those streams have gotten warm with low levels. Most mentioned that king runs at their ports have slowed down after a fast start. Some like Grand mentioned that they haven't really started yet. All ports mentioned that they have not seen so many young feeder Kings in many many years.

Coho showed up around July 4th and Pentwater mentioned better then normal Coho fishing. Some were taken in the 12-15lb. range, with a 17lb Coho was recorded.

Bait lake wide is moving in the wrong direction. Hardly any 1 year old Ales taken in trawls. Bloaters made up much of the bait found.

We had tons of small immature kings around in Aug offshore this year on the south end.