# Little Man Egg Take



## MGump (Sep 24, 2009)

I heard they were doing the egg take at the weir yesterday. Anyone know how many fish they had?


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## M. Tonello (Sep 20, 2002)

MGump said:


> I heard they were doing the egg take at the weir yesterday. Anyone know how many fish they had?


Yep. Spawned 109 pairs, and harvested 889 total Chinook salmon. Many of them were smaller males, likely from the 2015 year class. Not very many true adult fish. Biggest Chinook was 22.5 or something like that. Tough not seeing the true adults, but nice seeing the jack males. Hopefully means we got good survival from 2015 class.

Also passed 108 cohos, 68 steelhead, and 6 brown trout. Had at least 1/2 doz steelies over 10 lbs, including one 14 lb brute hen that is now waiting to destroy someone near 6 Mile Bridge.


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## toto (Feb 16, 2000)

Sounds like decent news Mark. Perhaps the big ones just haven't shown up yet, who knows, I guess. If this water would ever cool down, perhaps we could get some good steelhead action going.


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## dinoday (Feb 22, 2004)

For the amount of large fish I saw posted in the cold water section this year, I have to wonder if a lot of fish haven't come up yet too.


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## Erik (Jan 17, 2000)

There were some nice ones that came through back before the weir was put in place. Of all the Salmon I've caught so far this year about 50% have been over the 15lb range.


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## Sparky23 (Aug 15, 2007)

Just curiouse but why harvest juvenile and not let them pass? Or did you need all 900 to spawn 108 pairs?


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## SJC (Sep 3, 2002)

Sparky23 said:


> Just curiouse but why harvest juvenile and not let them pass? Or did you need all 900 to spawn 108 pairs?


Cat food.


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## mikey (May 26, 2005)

M. Tonello said:


> Yep. Spawned 109 pairs, and harvested 889 total Chinook salmon. Many of them were smaller males, likely from the 2015 year class. Not very many true adult fish. Biggest Chinook was 22.5 or something like that. Tough not seeing the true adults, but nice seeing the jack males. Hopefully means we got good survival from 2015 class.
> 
> Also passed 108 cohos, 68 steelhead, and 6 brown trout. Had at least 1/2 doz steelies over 10 lbs, including one 14 lb brute hen that is now waiting to destroy someone near 6 Mile Bridge.


So how do these numbers compare to other years? And are they done with egg taking for this season?


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## Sparky23 (Aug 15, 2007)

mikey said:


> So how do these numbers compare to other years? And are they done with egg taking for this season?


 i believe this will be the 3rd lowest return in the history of the weir. Last being the lowest and 2 years ago second lowest. Im not 100% on that but i know last year was by far worst ever


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## M. Tonello (Sep 20, 2002)

Sparky23 said:


> Just curiouse but why harvest juvenile and not let them pass? Or did you need all 900 to spawn 108 pairs?


Sparky- The jack males aren't juveniles. They are sexually mature fish that would die after spawning. They are just males that decided to run after only two summers in the lake. They are typically 2-5 lbs, although I'd say these fish were on the larger size for jack males. Also, we have a contract with American Canadian Fisheries to take all of the Chinook salmon that show up to the Little Manistee weir. So we harvest them all, for the most part.



mikey said:


> So how do these numbers compare to other years? And are they done with egg taking for this season?


Mikey- Not good at all. See here: http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-10364_52259_19092-51534--,00.html
If more fish show up we will take more eggs there.


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## dinoday (Feb 22, 2004)

If you removed 2010, this year was the lowest spring steelhead take since 1970


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## tcfishes (Oct 2, 2013)

If one were to catch a male and a female and harvest the eggs and milt, would it be possible to breed them in an aquarium? Is it legal?


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## Sparky23 (Aug 15, 2007)

M. Tonello said:


> Sparky- The jack males aren't juveniles. They are sexually mature fish that would die after spawning. They are just males that decided to run after only two summers in the lake. They are typically 2-5 lbs, although I'd say these fish were on the larger size for jack males. Also, we have a contract with American Canadian Fisheries to take all of the Chinook salmon that show up to the Little Manistee weir. So we harvest them all, for the most part.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I realize that they are sexually mature, and will die, question is why not let them pass rather than kill them for nothing? What is the contract for? Or is it for eggs for other states just confused about it is all, why have 900 fish been killed if only 108 pairs were spawned. Do have an answer to how the MIdnr sold excess salmon eggs last year before quota was reached and where those eggs came from?


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## jrv (Nov 11, 2008)

Is the river still closed until Nov. 15th, or can we start fishing it again since the egg collection is complete?


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## pdp3 (Oct 21, 2009)

I should be sleep due to the fact that I'm traveling north but I'm kind of confused with this conversation are we saying that the Weir is open at the little man


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## MGump (Sep 24, 2009)

Thanks, Mark. In addition to being a fisherman, I am doing the salmon in the classroom program this year, and plan on using some of the DNR's historical data with my classes. 

If you know, approximately how many eggs do you collect from 109 pairs?


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## KC Black (Sep 3, 2015)

Sparky23 said:


> I realize that they are sexually mature, and will die, question is why not let them pass rather than kill them for nothing? What is the contract for? Or is it for eggs for other states just confused about it is all, why have 900 fish been killed if only 108 pairs were spawned. Do have an answer to how the MIdnr sold excess salmon eggs last year before quota was reached and where those eggs came from?


Sparky
The so called "jack" salmon are mature fish that are capable of reproducing and then dying. Most people think that these jack salmon return back to the big water---not true, they die. If you say just let the jack salmon through you are thinking they are going to live, like trout. If you see salmon in a river in the fall --they are going to die. I'm sure the DNR contract that all river salmon be harvested. The jack salmon theory reminds of the "old days" when Tempotec had the contract to harvest all salmon in Michigan. People would watch the harvest at the weirs tempotec set up and get pissed that they were not throwing the jacks back. Have any readers here ever visited the tempotec processing plant they had set up in Hart MI. A real old shabby building but state of the art processing equipment like flash freezers. They actually had Japanese people there inspecting the finished product especially the eggs. The eggs went into wooden boxes with all kinds of Japanese symbols on them.


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## M. Tonello (Sep 20, 2002)

Sparky23 said:


> I realize that they are sexually mature, and will die, question is why not let them pass rather than kill them for nothing? What is the contract for? Or is it for eggs for other states just confused about it is all, why have 900 fish been killed if only 108 pairs were spawned. Do have an answer to how the MIdnr sold excess salmon eggs last year before quota was reached and where those eggs came from?


We cannot pass them- our contract with American Canadian dictates that we harvest all Chinook salmon that show up to the weir. Although these last few years have seen very low runs, in previous years, the contract was very important as we don't really want 10,000+ Chinook all over the Little Manistee River. American Canadian Fisheries markets the fish and any eggs we don't use for a number of purposes. If we have enough fish, yes we would take Chinook eggs for other states, specifically Indiana and Illinois. Regarding surplus eggs- those could have been Chinook eggs from other weirs (Boardman, Medusa, Swan River) or coho eggs from the Platte or Boardman Weirs.


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## M. Tonello (Sep 20, 2002)

tcfishes said:


> If one were to catch a male and a female and harvest the eggs and milt, would it be possible to breed them in an aquarium? Is it legal?


Haven't heard of anyone doing that, but I suppose it would be legal. Can't think of any laws against it, as long as the adult salmon were legally caught. You would have to have a fish stocking permit from DNR to be able to stock the offspring.


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## M. Tonello (Sep 20, 2002)

jrv said:


> Is the river still closed until Nov. 15th, or can we start fishing it again since the egg collection is complete?


The river below the weir will remain closed until November 15th. Also, egg collection is not necessarily complete. If more fish show up, we will conduct more egg take operations.



pdp3 said:


> I should be sleep due to the fact that I'm traveling north but I'm kind of confused with this conversation are we saying that the Weir is open at the little man


No the weir is not open. The weir is still closed. We are hoping for more Chinooks to show up. We will continue to pass any steelhead, coho salmon, and brown trout that show up there.


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