tgafish

Yup this suggestion is dead on arrival at the Mi DNR The only reason they are still planting kings is to justify budgets, have field workers keep their jobs, and lessen the blow on charters. The best thing to do to continue the fishery would be to drop King and Coho plants for a period of 5 years. Help the alewife population build some spawning year classes and then reintroduce them slowly to find a balance. Unfortunately this would be too much for many businesses to survive so we have to continue with this precarious balancing act. Throwing back salmon is the worst thing you can do for sustaining this fishery.

My catching was pathetic this year. I did not target lakers at any point. I did target Steel twice. After the anemic spring king bite I seriously cut down on my Lk Mi fishing. I only went out about a dozen times this year. Spring ho's were good to average. I landed about 2-3 fish per trip the rest of the year with one skunk. Best day was 8 landed with 4 being kings. I will most likely switch my target to spring ho's browns and summer steel next year and travel more to Saginaw and Erie for eyes. Might try to learn inland lakes for panfish.

Well Boltman I would say you are one of the few folks that has turned that platform into a Great Lakes fishing boat so I wasn't exactly thinking of a 20 ton48 sedan when the question was asked. So in your case I would agree it's not even an option to run gas. I would also agree that a diesel engine is a superior machine for the job of pushing a large heavy boat through the water. But obviously that all comes at a hefty price. At what point does the extra tens of thousands spent on diesels pay for itself in a 17 to 22K lb boat running 10-30 miles per trip 4-5 months per year? Somebody could take that money and buy a 20hp kicker that would burn 5 gallons a day and still have enough money left over to totally deck out the boat in top of the line electronics and holders. I would argue there are respectable gas options for a boat over 35ft. if somebodies budget called for it.

I'll start with #2. No there is no scare factor #1. I've done a lot of recent research on this. According to the experts a 36 foot boat is the minimum of when you should start looking at diesels. Forget all the things you will hear about gas savings, longer life, less maintenance. The added upfront cost will make recouping the gas costs a long term proposition. Long life is associated with constant running diesels not ones that sit for long periods of time. And the cost of parts and service basically evens out the maintenance costs. The one thing you want to consider is performance. You're going to at least double but most likely triple to quadruple the weight of your current boat. The torque in a diesel is built to get those tubs out of the water or push them along at low rpm non planning speeds. The big bored out gas burners are sometimes undergunned for the job or need to run pretty hard to push that weight. I think the diesels are a bit overboard and for most freshwater needs. The guys who need the diesels are running 60-80 miles one way in 4-8 foot seas on a typical day trip. Good luck and God Bless!

Nice trip Martin!

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.

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

Glad you're doing well in the mud in GH. Kill all the ale eaters you can. You're comment about more fish being planted is insane.

They changed this. I forget what they changed it to but I believe it is tied to a predator prey number ratio. Covered it during the meeting in Ludington. Thank goodness the charters are taking out shakers and hammering the lakers. Need to build up some ale year classes:thumb:

If I didn't enjoy going over to Saginaw and Erie I would be considering selling. I have a feeling there is going to be a large number of salmon boats on the block next spring and a glut by the end of the year. As of this year we have approx. 2.76 million less catchable Chinooks swimming in Lake Mi than we did in 2012. This does not take into account the poor spawning conditions experienced around the lake in 2012 due to low water levels so the number is most likely greater than that. Figure less Chinook being caught this year and last year and the number probably evens itself. That is a substantial drop! And remember the adults this year are still from the 2012 plant so we'll have 1.38 million less fish to fish for next year than we do this year! You think this year was tough for kings you better get ready......

Are you sure that's a Steelhead? Tail looks awefully forked