Little Bay de Noc Fishing Reports

A friend of mine sent this to me. It was in the August 11th Milwaukee Journal Sentinal...

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Wisconsin stands to take a 37.8% cut in chinook salmon stocking in Lake Michigan next year. And Michigan, where chinook are naturally reproducing by perhaps millions each year, is in line for a 66.8% reduction in "king" plants.

Those are among the details of a tentative plan presented this week by Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources fisheries managers

The goal: Achieve a better balance of predator and forage fish in the big lake and prevent a crash of any sector of the population.

The DNR held meetings in Green Bay and Milwaukee last week to share the latest information and collect additional comments.

Studies in recent years have shown a declining biomass of alewives and other forage fish in Lake Michigan. The alewife, considered the most important food source for the lake's trout and salmon, reached a record low in 2011, according to surveys by the U.S. Geological Survey.

Fisheries managers recommended cuts in stocking of trout and salmon to avoid problems, including potential disease outbreaks in undernourished fish.

Bacterial Kidney Disease caused a crash in the chinook population in the late 1980s on the heels of reduced forage numbers.

Ninety-nine percent of sport anglers who participated in meetings and responded to a survey this year supported a plan to decrease stocking in the lake.

"The devil is always in the details," said Brad Eggold, the DNR's southern Lake Michigan fisheries supervisor.

Eggold is Wisconsin's representative to the Lake Michigan Committee of the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission. The committee is charged with making the decisions on stocking cuts.

After more than a year of meetings and input from anglers, Eggold said the committee has come up with a tentative plan.

Wisconsin would reduce chinook salmon stocking 37.8% next year and cut plants of coho salmon, brown, rainbow and lake trout by 10% beginning in 2014.

In Michigan, where significant natural reproduction of chinook occurs in Lake Michigan tributaries, stocking of chinook would be reduced by 66.8%.

Illinois and Indiana, which have the smallest Lake Michigan shorelines and stock the fewest fish, would reduce chinook stocking by 8% and 11%, respectively.

Lakewide chinook stocking would be reduced from 3.3 million in 2012 to 1.7 million in 2013.

The stocking numbers (2012 and 2013 plans) for the states would be: Wisconsin 1.16 million in 2012, 723,000 in 2013; Michigan 1.69 million and 560,000; Illinois 250,000 and 230,000; and Indiana 225,000 and 200,000.

The reduction in Wisconsin has sport anglers, especially in southern ports like Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha, feeling vulnerable.

"If you go with this plan, you're selling us down the river," said Angelo Trentadue of Racine, a Lake Michigan angler for more than 40 years. "Michigan has loads of natural reproduction and would still be stocking, and Wisconsin would be taking the biggest hit."

Chinook salmon travel throughout the lake during much of their lives but return to their stocking sites or natal rivers on spawning runs when they mature.

If few or no fish are stocked in a port, the "fall" chinook fishery would be compromised or vanish.

And Michigan anglers, with natural reproduction in its Lake Michigan tributaries estimated in the millions, would continue to have chinook available from spring to fall, even if stocking were discontinued there.

Eggold said one point of discussion in the meetings was for Michigan to discontinue stocking about 405,000 chinook in streams that have documented natural reproduction.

But it will be up to each state to decide where to take the cuts.

In Wisconsin, each stocking site would receive a 37.8% cut in its chinook plants, Eggold said.

Strawberry Creek (the state's chinook collection facility near Sturgeon Bay) would continue to receive priority in the state's chinook stocking quota.

Louis Kowieski of West Allis, a longtime angler and member of the Great Lakes Sports Fishermen, supported the cuts in theory but said the plan should also include commercial fishermen.

"Why aren't the commercials being asked to reduce its take of forage fish?" Kowieski asked. "And why do we continue to allow them to catch another valuable forage fish, the smelt, when the forage base is in such trouble?"

Others questioned why the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service isn't participating in the process. The service handles lake trout stocking on Lake Michigan.

As it stands, lake trout - widely regarded as the least preferred species by sport anglers - would be the most-stocked predator fish in the lake in 2013. And despite a record low forage base, the service has no plans to reduce lake trout stocking.

Eggold said that, based on Wisconsin anglers' preferences, stocking reductions here would likely include a 10% share of coho salmon, brown trout, rainbow trout and lake trout beginning in 2014.

Eggold said the modified stocking plan should be finalized by early September so the states can avoid collecting excess chinook eggs and putting unneeded fish in the hatchery system this fall.

To view the presentation showed at last week's meetings, visit www.jsonline.com/sports/outdoors