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Is salmon fishing that bad........


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Kick'R

When you speak to your Wisconsin buddy, what story is their DNR saying about the health of the fishery?

Not sure as he is from the same area as me in Indiana and Illinois he just took his boat up there this past weekend for his yearly trip it was so good he left the boat up there and is heading back next weekend

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there is way more bait than the dnr claims, they need to change where and when they do the trawl samples.

They did change some of the trawls and sonar samples last year. These changes did not correlate with the opinion that there is more bait than they claim. Alewives have shown to be more adaptive than the kings in finding alterative foods. Hopefully they have a couple successful spawns and there is enough food out there for them when they do

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So there's a ton of bait in the plume at grand haven, with kings in it. Hmm. How do the other 22,799 square miles of the lake look? Don't draw a conclusion about the health of the whole eco system based on a small sample size.

I find lots of cars in a mall parking lot, but not many in the field next to it. Should I look only at the parking lot, I may think there's a lot of cars. If I turn around, not so many.

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So there's a ton of bait in the plume at grand haven, with kings in it. Hmm. How do the other 22,799 square miles of the lake look? Don't draw a conclusion about the health of the whole eco system based on a small sample size.

I find lots of cars in a mall parking lot, but not many in the field next to it. Should I look only at the parking lot, I may think there's a lot of cars. If I turn around, not so many.

It's not just in Grand Haven it's all over the Lake. I've talked to charter captains up and down and across the lake who have been seeing the same thing. Lots of alewives and kings with full stomachs. I've cut open over 200 fish this year and about 90% of them have had a lot of bait inside of them and not just full grown alewives but them of all sizes. I also know a lot of people who pier fish across the lake and all of them have been pulling up alewives by the doZens constantly. And there aren't many kings over on our side the last few weeks because we've got all the cold water. Those kings are far and few in between unless you have warm water. They're finding the warm water in the river water, at breaks where the waters warm, or over on the Wisconsin side. The fish are all healthy fish too. And they will be bigger than last years. Last year barely anybody broke 20 pounds. It's July right now and I've got a couple myself and I've seen dozens of others.

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I took 4 more out of GH tonight in an hour, 1 nice brown and 3 12-14lb kings again not one thing in the kings guts, granted i havent cleaned 200, but somewhere around 40-50 and have yet to see more than 2 ales on one this year. Did mark alot of bait even snagged an ale on a 2 color tonight.

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Here is a graph of of the Chinook stocked in Lake MI by Michigan's DNR over the years. Prior to 2006, we stocked about 6.2 million Chinook per year. During 2012, 2013 and 2014 we stocked a total of 5.88 million (for all 3 years combined).

post-6146-14498788198338_thumb.jpg

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Looking at the postings on this site and other sites there seems to be plenty of alewives. If the DNR continues to stock less kings for the next two or three years the alewives will over run the lakes again. By the time the DNR gets back to 5 million salmon it will be too late because it takes them a couple of years before they do any damage to the alewives.

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Most of the guys on this site do not remember when alewives were out of control. They used heavy equipment on a daily basis to clean them off from the beaches in southern lake Michigan. Every wave deposited thousands of dead alewives, gulls could not eat them fast enough. At that time you could not find a gull unless it was on the shoreline eating alewives. I have seen them 3 feet deep and 25 feet back on the shore.

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I remember Bob. I was a young kid but not to young that I don't remember back in the late 60s and early 70s. not only could you not enjoy the beach, the smell would keep you from even walking down to the lake. I pray the DNR knows what the hell they are doing but have my doubts.

I posted a discussion about two months ago on this very topic and looks like the opinions are changing.

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If the DNR continues to stock less kings for the next two or three years the alewives will over run the lakes again. By the time the DNR gets back to 5 million salmon it will be too late because it takes them a couple of years before they do any damage to the alewives.

Not true. Year 1 Chinooks eat year 1 alewives. That is why we had large fish in 13 and are seeing larger fish this year. 2010 and 2012 are the only alewife hatches in recent history that were not considered poor. Plants have an immediate impact on the numbers. The alewives can't overrun the lakes again as there is not enough food for them to do so thanks to quagga mussels. The only concern would be large numbers of alewives starving and collapsing. The nice thing is that the bottom of the food chain can recover quickly so sudden starvation events in plankton predators is rare beyond catastrophic events.

The ecosystem of the lake is completely different than it was when those events occurred in the 60's and 70's. There will still be comparatively small alewife die offs because of spawning stress if the commission manages to save the population.

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The DNR is also talking about stocking herring. So hey, if those alewfies did die off... Herring wouldn't be so bad.. We'd be having so big ole kings just like Lake Ontario. But then again from what I've been told straight from someone who is on the board of the DNR that this year the fish will be bigger, and the alewfie population is rebounding very well, and that the fishing in the next few years should continue to get better. They also plan to stock more kings in the following years. So it is good news. From my view, i think next year were gonna have another big king year. The fishing won't be great, but I think it'll be exactly like 2013. Not very many kings but they have all been hitting the feed. We've seen a good number of large fish that are not the mature 3 year olds who will run this year. As for the alewfies, they appear they've found food to eat too :D

post-4246-14498788198601_thumb.jpg

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The DNR is also talking about stocking herring. So hey, if those alewfies did die off... Herring wouldn't be so bad.. We'd be having so big ole kings just like Lake Ontario. But then again from what I've been told straight from someone who is on the board of the DNR that this year the fish will be bigger, and the alewfie population is rebounding very well, and that the fishing in the next few years should continue to get better. They also plan to stock more kings in the following years. So it is good news. From my view, i think next year were gonna have another big king year. The fishing won't be great, but I think it'll be exactly like 2013. Not very many kings but they have all been hitting the feed. We've seen a good number of large fish that are not the mature 3 year olds who will run this year. As for the alewfies, they appear they've found food to eat too :D

Did you hear from someone in the DNR they are thinking of stocking herring ? Up here around tc the tribe is actually doing it. I think just in its 2nd year.

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The DNR is also talking about stocking herring. So hey, if those alewfies did die off... Herring wouldn't be so bad.. We'd be having so big ole kings just like Lake Ontario. But then again from what I've been told straight from someone who is on the board of the DNR that this year the fish will be bigger, and the alewfie population is rebounding very well, and that the fishing in the next few years should continue to get better. They also plan to stock more kings in the following years. So it is good news. From my view, i think next year were gonna have another big king year. The fishing won't be great, but I think it'll be exactly like 2013. Not very many kings but they have all been hitting the feed. We've seen a good number of large fish that are not the mature 3 year olds who will run this year. As for the alewfies, they appear they've found food to eat too :D

Herring have already been stocked. People have been catching a lot of them in both grand traverse bays and in the pine river channel and lake charlevoix for a few years now, but the ones they catch are over 18". But I don't know if there is any natural reproduction.

Steeliebob, I don't think the alewives will ever get out of control like years ago. Look at Lake Huron. Salmon numbers are still way down and the alewives still haven't rebounded to bring back the salmon numbers.

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Caught / kings in Leland Thursday. One was empty, one had 7 alewifes or herring, who knows. They came within 1/2 mile of one another. Lakers were full up too. Bait is there, I think we just got lucky as first timers out of that port

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Caught / kings in Leland Thursday. One was empty, one had 7 alewifes or herring, who knows. They came within 1/2 mile of one another. Lakers were full up too. Bait is there, I think we just got lucky as first timers out of that port

Glad to here salmon are at Leland.

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Here is a herring that was coughed up from a perch in st. Joe

From this graph shot I'd say there is allot of them[ATTACH]1314[/ATTACH][ATTACH]1315[/ATTACH]

Not to sure if that's a herring or not. It kind of looks like an emerald shiner but with it's mouth closed can't be for sure. But at least it's food for the salmon.

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