plantings

[2MD]

plantings

Anyone know what year it was that the DNR in effort to control fish population stopped planting chinook in Holland and Saugatuck?  Just trying to gauge what the fall run may or may not entail this year...  thank you

[Mega Byte]

Holland got 15,000 in 2013.  http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-10364_53405-297817--,00.html

[Mega Byte]

This will give you exactly what you are looking for: http://www.michigandnr.com/fishstock/

County	Water Body	Species	Strain	Date	Number	Operation	Avg. Length	Fin Clips, Marks, Tags
Ottawa	Lake Macatawa Holland Net Pen (06N 16W 34)	Chinook salmon	Michigan	05/14/10	44,831	State Plant	4.02	oxytetracycline
Ottawa	Lake Macatawa Holland Net Pen (06N 16W 34)	Chinook salmon	Michigan	05/12/11	43,800	State Plant	3.62	adipose, coded wire tag
Ottawa	Lake Macatawa Holland Net Pen (06N 16W 34)	Chinook salmon	Michigan	05/03/12	45,520	State Plant	3.82	adipose, coded wire tag
Ottawa	Lake Macatawa Holland Net Pen (06N 16W 34)	Chinook salmon	Michigan	05/13/13	15,039	State Plant	3.94	adipose, coded wire tag
Ottawa	Lake Macatawa Holland Net Pen (06N 16W 34)	Chinook salmon	Michigan	05/08/14	15,081	State Plant	4.09	adipose, coded wire tag
Ottawa	Lake Macatawa Holland Net Pen (06N 16W 34)	Chinook salmon	Michigan	05/09/15	16,068	State Plant	3.94	adipose, coded wire tag
Ottawa	Lake Macatawa Holland Net Pen (06N 16W 34)	Chinook salmon	Michigan	05/20/16	15,127	State Plant	3.82	adipose, coded wire tag

[2MD]

hey this is great info! thank you

[fishbuster]

Holland received 0 Salmon for 2017 and will receive the same for following years until the DNR decides otherwise. King fishing is going to get really tough in Holland for the next few years.

[fishbuster]

I know that nobody wants to hear this, but it's the truth. Alewife population is up but the DNR will take at least 4 years to increase the salmon stocking. Fishing will be tough for several years!

[FBD]

Alewives are far from out of trouble.  I'll take a few down years on kings  over having them being gone forever.  

Harbor patrol may suck, and I'm fond of playing bumper boats, but the king fishing out of Holland has been solid this year, to the new normal.  I caught more kings in May this year than I caught in 2015 and 2016 combined.  I caught kings every time I looked for them this year.  Other than April, I never specifically targetted trout this year.

[fishbuster]

FBD, I Totaly agree with with you. The stocking cuts were necessary but zero plants out of the Holland area are a bit extreme. Fishing out of this area is going to be really bad over the next few years. ( I really hope that I am wrong)

 

[Mega Byte]

I read that they don't want to stock under 10,000 fish in a location for cost/efficiency reasons.  Must be whatever number their algorithm produced was less than 10,000 and they don't believe in rounding up.  There still should be some natural reproduction in the river though.

If the alewives are able to rebound and the king stocking stays low, we're going to see more very large fish.  This is a delicate dance the DNR is doing between the alewife population and salmon population.  (And the weather, because that affects reproduction rates of both species as well.)  So far they are doing a good job in the lake as a whole.  

[FBD]

The river into Holland is a glorified agricultural drain.  I doubt there's any significant natural reproduction.

Even the Joe, Kzoo, and Grand have tribs that support limited reproduction.  I've seen steelhead and caught small rainbows 5 miles from my house in a stream that is not planted.  Not sure if any of those guys run the gauntlet of pike and make it to the big lake.

I firmly believe that other than staging mature fish, the fish we catch out if Holland year round are not Holland plants.  My CWT returns have fish from all over LM and even some from Lake Huron with no pattern.  I've caught mature fish in August from St. Joe, WI, and Rogers City in the same trip.

Fish also stray a lot.  We catch coho in Lake Mac and the nearest plant was the Grand.

So don't be too worried about it.

 

[FBD]

There's also a no Unum threshold to plant due to predators.  If you're going to lose 5k before they disperse to the lake, better to lose 5k out if 50k and not a third of them.

My nephew caught a master angler walleye in Mac last spring a week after the net pin was opened, and it was full of king smolts.

Oddly, the browns we caught this spring in Lake Michigan were full of little browns...

[coralee]

As far as a run in Holland the King numbers that were great a week ago are down a lot now (in the lake) so I don't know if a bunch already ran of if they are heading to another port to run. As far as bait we marked bait in big numbers lately S of Holland. There are still a few nice fish to be had yet and Trout fishing is incredible for anyone interested.

However we did find our beer thief yesterday