Outdoors Weekly News Archive

April 18, 2008

Lake Michigan Report

By Kevin Naze
Green Bay Press-Gazette
STURGEON BAY, Wis. (AP) – Lake Michigan chinook salmon aren’t as big as they once were, but anglers are catching a lot more of them faster than ever.
According to Department of Natural Resources creel census estimates and charter boat harvest reports, more than 431,000 chinooks were hooked on the big lake and its tributaries last year.
That breaks the previous high of 418,918 in 2005 and continued a record-setting string of salmon catches this decade.
DNR fisheries biologist Scott Hansen of Sturgeon Bay said natural recruitment on the Michigan side of the lake and a reduction in the salmon’s favored forage, alewives, likely are playing key roles in the smaller salmon sizes of recent years.
For the first time in its 25-year history last summer, the Kewaunee-Door County Salmon Tournament failed to produce a fish larger than 25 pounds. It was the fourth straight year of a sub-30-pound winner, mirroring what happened the late 1980s.
When the salmon action slumped in the 1990s due to a forage base crash and bacterial kidney disease, the average size of chinooks that survived soared. Then, a big year class of alewives in 1998 fueled another boom of big fish. Between 1989 and 2003, the winning king topped 30 pounds – hitting 40.03 in 1993 – every year but one.
Hansen said the standard weight of a 30-inch fish returning to the state’s Strawberry Creek egg collection site in Sturgeon Bay last fall was about 8.44 pounds, only slightly better than the all-time low of 8.41 in 2005.
While the average fish creeled in recent years has been about four to five pounds smaller than as recently as 2001, salmon anglers never have had better fishing. Last year’s estimate of angler hours for boat, shore, pier and stream fishermen was just over 3 million, well below the 4 million to 5 million hours it took to land similar numbers of fish in the 1980s.
The 645,000-plus salmon and trout caught last year was the best since the record of more than 762,000 in 1987, when lake trout, brown trout and coho salmon numbers were much higher.
Kewaunee and Door counties accounted for more than 180,000 of the chinooks landed last year, tops in the state.
For the 12th straight year, Algoma and Kewaunee combined to lead the state with more than 124,000 kings. That included more than 75,000 on private boats, nearly 35,000 on chartered trips and more than 11,000 during the fall run in the rivers.
Door County was second at 57,970, with more than 40,000 of those hooked on private boats. Ozaukee, Sheboygan and Manitowoc counties each had more than 50,000 chinooks caught.
Anglers landed an estimated 94,677 coho salmon, the most since 2002. Milwaukee led the way with 23,439, followed by Racine, Port Washington, Kenosha and Sheboygan.
More than 62,000 rainbow trout were reported, also the best in the past five years. Kewaunee County led the way for the sixth year in a row at more than 16,000, followed by Manitowoc at 12,915 and Sheboygan at 10,102.
Private trollers accounted for more than 11,500 rainbows at Algoma and Kewaunee, while the charter catch was 4,334. Only about 600 combined were estimated to have been kept in rivers, from piers and by wading or casting the lake’s shoreline.
The brown trout total of 37,947 was more than double the 2006 estimate and the highest in the past seven years. Ramp anglers reported the most by far, more than 17,000 of them.
Milwaukee County set the pace with more than 12,000 brown trout, followed by Ozaukee, Sheboygan, Green Bay and Kewaunee County.
More than 19,000 lake trout were caught, the most in the past four years but well below historic averages.
Milwaukee led the estimates at more than 3,800 lakers, followed by Sheboygan, Kewaunee County, Port Washington and Manitowoc County.
While it was the second-best year in the past 10, Green Bay’s estimated yellow perch harvest in 2007 – 630,709 – fell more than 190,000 fish shy of the 2006 total.
However, the 2007 ice fishing estimate of more than 129,000 was an increase of about 65,000 perch over the previous year. The big drop came in the ramp boat fishery, with 225,000-plus fewer perch reported.
New this year, DNR fisheries supervisor Mike Donofrio of Peshtigo said limited-term employees that work creel census will be more visible, thanks to magnetic signs on their vehicle doors.
“We wanted to display to the public the scope of our creel survey program and counter comments that question we even have a program,” Donofrio said.