DNR Chinook stocking last 4 years ---> Allegan & Ottawa

[2MD]

interesting photos ATTACHED 

 

I'd say 95% of the mature fish of substance (those weighing 15# plus) and we caught scores of them this fall had an unclipped fin and were naturals

[zgrinder on Fin Warrior]

Thanks for bringing this up.  Berried in catch reports that I post, I include (N) if the fish has an adipose fin.  I might go through my data to proved specific numbers but off the top of my head, 9 of 10 kings I caught this year in the second to last year of life, the bigger ones, were naturals - similar to your data.  Perhaps this might be skewed due to the decrease in stocking in Lake Mac but it doesn't explain why the big fish are typically naturals.  What does the Fish Whisper PUG have to say about this?

[2MD]

interesting you have identified the same pattern with naturals! yep I know you are very detailed and track things well.

PUG knows a very smart captain in GH who has been doing this for 40 years and he explains it to him this way - the DNR screws up the stocking and here's how - at the weir where they harvest eggs and sperm they have 4 full time employees that all they do is pull kings out of a catch pen and extract eggs and sperm... all day long and all week long they do this.  Now he says that he has sat and watched them work several times and they are not large adult individuals but more your 90-110 pound build and that then to no suprise when it comes to selecting fish to extract from that 90% of the time they pick the smaller scrawny less healthy ones and leave the big pigs down in the pen. Hence what happens is the plants have the less than superior dna & genes in most cases and/or the plants are not the behemoth 4yr dna but instead most likely your 2year old jack or 3yr old early runner.  Makes sense to PUG. Makes sense to me too.  Nonetheless quite frustrating.  There is not a charter captain or amateur angler that wouldn't volunteer to do this work for free if it helped the fishery!

PUG is even more contrarian and while the DNR has insisted for decades that there is no natural reproduction in the kzoo river he has spent a bunch of time up around swan creek in the fall and doesn't buy it for a second. They get it done up there and some of these naturals return every fall.

[zgrinder on Fin Warrior]

Thanks for sharing.  I am on board with PUG's thinking on this.

[jdh]

From what I can tell, Grand Haven had a decent run based on the 2021 plants.  Saugatuck was good when the fish were in this year - but next year should be better.  Hopefully will even have a few run the Holland channel next year too.

 

-JDH

[FBD]

What I cannot find is proof the DNR clips all, or some, or none of the kings any longer.  I thought they switched the CWT program over to steel and stopped clipping kings but I cannot prove that.  I also thought the fish stock info had a column for tags / fin clips - I know it used to but now I don't see it.

 

That said my results align with yours - a clipped king was a rare catch this year.

[FBD]

Also I believe 2022 was the last king plant for Holland.  I wish those fish were split up between Saugatuck and South Haven but I think they were allotted somewhere else.

[jdh]

I think you're right about that.  Can't find an article to confirm it though!

[Aaron Nusbaum]

Also I believe 2022 was the last king plant for Holland.  I wish those fish were split up between Saugatuck and South Haven but I think they were allotted somewhere else.

2022 was the last king plant in Holland. I can't post screenshots here but I was the one who asked about Holland in the comment section when the planting increase was announced and Jay Wesley, the lake Michigan coordinator, replied saying they aren't planting Holland anymore. His excuse was that they plant so many walleye and musky in lake Mac they'd just eat the king smolts. When I asked him why they plant so many walleye there he went on to explain how they hold there and they prioritize native plants. That annoys me because last time I checked nobody flocks to our ports for walleye, but they will for kings.

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[FBD]

No walleye in Holland.  Nothing to see here.

[2MD]

haha - i was waiting for that response Kevin

[FBD]

I have caught rainbows in tribs of the Grand and Kalamazoo where they are not planted so I know steel naturally reproduce down here.  Whether they leave and run the gauntlet of everything that wants to eat them and make it to the big lake in any appreciable numbers I can’t say.

 

When I trapped and there were way more salmon running I would find them in ag drains with their backs out of the water.  I found a dead coho in a drainage ditch at the (Todd farm) Fennville farm unit.

 

So we know the kings are making the effort down here just not sure if those creeks allow the parr enough resources to mature.

 

 

 

[FBD]

70’ of water mag moonshine 225’ copper.  I’ve gotta run my Tawas spread down here sometime and see what I can do preferably under better conditions.  I’ve taken quite a few in closer when conditions have been better but this was the deepest by about 35’.

[FBD]

I also need to run my Saugatuck spread in Tawas to show those Huron guys a few things.  They seem to be stuck in a rut granted it works but I could leverage a paradigm shift and make it a win win synergy for all shareholders.  
 

Granted the Tawas guys are very good at finding fish - they have structure and currents and offshore winds and all kinds of things our 25’ a mile sand shelf doesn’t offer.  Much more dynamic over there.

[SeaFoam]

No walleye in Holland.  Nothing to see here.

Trolling cranks or jigging?


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[FBD]

Cranks / spoons / sticks.

I’ve caught a lot of really nice walleye on J plugs.