Lake Huron Salmon

[steeliebob]

Did all of the Lake Huron Salmon go to Lake Michigan or is that a DNR myth. Apparently there is a lack of food for the salmon in Lake Huron according to the DNR. Yet walleyes, Steelhead,and Lake Trout are thriving and getting fat in Lake Huron. Could it be that the salmon weirs took too many salmon and killed off the spawners? Combine this with the VHS and it is a recipie for disaster. The DNR lowered the plants for a few years. You wipe out a natural population of fish and quit planting the hatchery fish, what do you expect will happen. Now that there is hundreds of charter boats on Lake Michigan do you try to rebuild L Huron at the expense of the L Michigan fishery?

[Fresh spawn]

No, lack of Alewives combined with too many salmon was the downfall of Lake Huron's chinook fishery. Mussels have hit Lake Huron very, very significantly. Browns, lakers, steelhead, walleyes etc all are willing to feed on a more varied diet, which chinook are not. Lake Huron has large browns, lakers are getting bigger, but steelhead are smaller then they used to be. Walleyes are still large in certain areas, but the huge numbers around the Sag Bay area has dropped the overall numbers of larger fish in that part of the lake. Atlantics seem solid as far as health, and the runs seem better each year.

[steeliebob]

We caught the Chinooks that looked like pike here in St Ignace about 8 years ago. The last few years they have been pretty healthy looking but they eat sticklebacks, smelt, whitefish, and a few walleyes and shad never an alewife. I believe that they can adapt. The weirs took alot of spawners out of Lake Huron and all but killed any hope for natural reproduction. Any DNR biologist will tell you that chinook do not spawn naturally, but they do and their success is higher than most would think. The pink salmon and atlantics have done super and thrived by natural reproduction. If the atlantics would thrive throughout L Huron you would probably have a better fisherie.

[Grant Sadler]

WOW you opened a can worms here,

I've been fishing lake Huron since 1985 and seen the GOOD, BAD, and the UGLY, and I don't think the salmon went to Lake Michigan they just ran out of food, they was brought here to control the elwive and they did their job, but with the other problem's that are in Lake Huron, they will have to adapt to the forage base that is in Question at this time, the lake Trout are adapting to it by eating gobbies and their young and what they can find, I think it's a cycle that we must live with, and the MDNR will try to take credit for the salmon will reproduce here and did before, I think that some fish have = walley, steel head, and brown's, we also need the good rivers for the salmon to spawn in, with the lower water levels some of the river's won't support that like they used to, I think that we just got to be willing to take the ride and wait it will come, also I joined the Michigan steel headers about 10 yr's ago becuase I beleive that its group of fisherman (like here with the GLF) that will make a differance in the long run sorry My 2 cents worth. Note I hope this was OK Mike I didn't want to vent like this here SORRY

Did all of the Lake Huron Salmon go to Lake Michigan or is that a DNR myth. Apparently there is a lack of food for the salmon in Lake Huron according to the DNR. Yet walleyes, Steelhead,and Lake Trout are thriving and getting fat in Lake Huron. Could it be that the salmon weirs took too many salmon and killed off the spawners? Combine this with the VHS and it is a recipie for disaster. The DNR lowered the plants for a few years. You wipe out a natural population of fish and quit planting the hatchery fish, what do you expect will happen. Now that there is hundreds of charter boats on Lake Michigan do you try to rebuild L Huron at the expense of the L Michigan fishery?

[steeliebob]

The southern half of L Huron has few if any good salmon spawning rivers unlike L Michigan which is loaded with good spawning rivers. The northern half of L Huron was dotted with weirs on the most reproductive waters. When the DNR allowed the weirs to go in I told some of my fishing partners that they were going to kill the salmon fishing. The one guy all but gave me his boat a couple of years ago. Give it another five years and the Atlantic Salmon will probably move further south on the Huron side. This will probably be what Lake Huron needs. It scares me to think that if these get a threshhold that the DNR will go back to catching them in weirs and selling them for cat food.

[Josey_Wales]

I started salmon fishing lake Huron around 7-8 years ago, a friend of mine and I decided just to drive out to Lexington which is on the southern end of the thumb north of port Huron. When we arrived there was a CROWD of people catching these fish left and right. It was a blast and I enjoyed every second. The very next year it seemed that we needed to chase the fish from Lexington all the way to Port Austin. And subsequently every year after has been worse and worse. This year is the worst I have ever seen it. I used to think my lack of success was purely on my lack of skill and knowledge. However the statistics across the board tell a different story. I hear about the alewives being gone and the lack of food for these fish. However I will say that I was fishing the black river mouth last week, and I can tell you I have never seen so many baitfish in my life. There was a constant stream of small baitfish and large amounts of emerald and what looked like Gizzard shad. There also was a large amount of Gobies as well, as kids were catching them in bucket fulls. I have heard that the lakers have possibly made the move to eating the gobies? One thing is certain the King Salmon has become the Unicorn of Lake Huron, and I dont know if they are coming back.

[Fresh spawn]

I don't think Kings will ever be back to anything near what they once were on Lake Huron. There will just be a few, healthy chinook around. I think they should focus on atlantics, LRB's and steelhead more for Lake Huron, as far as salmonoids. I wish they(FEDS) would cutback on the laker plants for a few years, there's a TON of them. It would be cool if cohos could get more established on the MI side of the lake. There's a few that run certain rivers every fall, but they're in pretty small numbers.

[Priority1]

Does anyone know how the herring plants are doing? I know a quite a few of them were planted. The herring are large enough and oily enough to sustain Salmon. Unlike the Alewives, the herring are native to the GLs. If the herring get established they would provide a good source of food for a lot of predatory fish as well as creating a commercial fishery.

Like mentioned before the Salmon were planted to control the alewives. The salmon certainly did their job, but the clearer water and other factors have also taken their toll on this evasive bait fish.

[steeliebob]

Mabey the days of the mighty Chinook are numbered. Personally I would much rather have an atlantic salmon fillet on my plate. Tastey tastey.