# 2010 Salmon Run Outlook



## salmon fever (Aug 10, 2006)

O.k., it is 8/31/10 and here is what I know based on many, many years of chasing river kings in NW MI:

1. The LM Weir only has about 100-150 kings behind it as of yesterday sooooo that would tell me that the run will be about 2 weeks later (give or take) than usual. 

2. The lake was late to turn over which also puts the run back a little. 

3. The SMOKING temps and low precipitation this summer will slow the run down some; however, 2003 was a hot/dry summer and the 2nd week in September was one of the best runs (pod size) I have seen in a long time (we got a few cold days and monster rains just prior to that run).

4. GOOD NEWS - Charter boat captains have been reporting fatter and bigger 4 year old fish. Some of the fish I have seen are starting (just starting) to remind me of some of the "football shaped" fish I remember from the 80's. 

In summary, it shoud be a pretty good but late year with some bigger fish around pushing over 20 pounds....maybe 25 pounds. 

Good luck to all and see ya on 9/24

Salmon Fever


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## pikedevil (Feb 11, 2003)

salmon fever said:


> 4. GOOD NEWS - Charter boat captains have been reporting fatter and bigger 4 year old fish. Some of the fish I have seen are starting (just starting) to remind me of some of the "football shaped" fish I remember from the 80's.
> 
> In summary, it shoud be a pretty good but late year with some bigger fish around pushing over 20 pounds....maybe 25 pounds.



I agree with everything you said except this last part about big fish, the fish are tiny this year, way way smaller than last year and a lot smaller than 2008 as well. Were looking at sizes similar to 2005 and 2007, which was the worst its ever been. 20 pounders have been rare this year. All you need to do is look at tournament results on the lake to see that the 20+ fish have been way down this year. The average adults this year are running in the 11-15 range with a fair amount of 16-18s. Take the ludington tournament for example, this year there were 3 fish over 20 pounds caught and it was some of the hottest adult king fishing I've ever seen, thousands of mature kings were caught. In 2009 there were something like 20 over 20#s and that was tough fishing with very few mature fish caught.

The salmon splash in manistee boasted a whopping 4 20+, muskegon, saugatuck, and holland tournaments combined for ZERO 20 pounders. The Benzie Frenzy, a tournament just last weekend and well known for big fish produced one fish over 20 pounds. My point is there are a few big fish being caught, including some 25-28 pound monsters, but they have been the exception rather than the rule. This year could go down as the smallest adult king average ever on lake michigan.


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## fishing-finlander (Sep 30, 2008)

the nighbor went king fishing about 3 or 4 weeks ago on the Lake with a guide. I told him to expect fish in the 20 pound range, just based on what I would consider average. His first time going, he came home with 3 fish in the 12-15lb range, long fish that I would have expected to be in the 18lb range min 16. I was surprised, also it took him all day to catch 5 total fish. The guide who I know of by reputation told him it was a smaller year (fish size) with good numbers. 

From my experience, the years when we have good snowfalls, and heavy spring rains grow bigger fish because of plankton blooms etc etc. coming out of the rivers. A barometer I use too, is the spring brown's in the shallows. It seems to me the years that I catch alot of spring browns in the lake we typically have good size kings both runs and lbs. This year I didnt slam them. I believe its all symbiotic. I'm no biologist by far, just my experience. Based on this years heat, and water levels I would expect a funny steelie run too. Unless things change dramatically.


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## big_phish (Jan 1, 2009)

I posted this in reponse to a thread on another forum and figured I'd do it here as well to garner some discussion seeming as though many of us are not fishing yet.:lol: On the other forum, the thread discussed why salmon in Lake Ontario was bigger on average than salmon we have here. L.O just had a tournament not long ago with the top fish tipped the scales at just over 40 lbs with multiple fish in the 30's. :yikes: http://www.greatontariosalmonderby.ca/weeksevenwinners/  Here's a link to the results. The majority of the responses on the thread as to why L.O has bigger fish on average pointed to the constant replenishing of baitfish by the St. Lawrence River system. 

Granted, I'm not an expert in this field, but given the fact that we currently have stocking programs in place, has anyone thought about stocking baitfish into Lakes Michigan and Huron to see if it will stimulate fish growth and bring back fish populations. I know we have a zebra mussell and goby problem but I would imagine so does L.O. and it still is able to produce bigger fish. If it's true that L.O. is replenished naturally, why can't we do artificially to L.M. and L.H.? Perhaps this solution was discussed before and we would probably have to cut down on our stockings but I personally would trade quantity for big, fat, healthy, quality fish anyday. Just my .02.


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## fishn' 4 life (Jul 24, 2005)

big_phish said:


> I posted this in reponse to a thread on another forum and figured I'd do it here as well to garner some discussion seeming as though many of us are not fishing yet.:lol: On the other forum, the thread discussed why salmon in Lake Ontario was bigger on average than salmon we have here. L.O just had a tournament not long ago with the top fish tipped the scales at just over 40 lbs with multiple fish in the 30's. :yikes: http://www.greatontariosalmonderby.ca/weeksevenwinners/  Here's a link to the results. The majority of the responses on the thread as to why L.O has bigger fish on average pointed to the constant replenishing of baitfish by the St. Lawrence River system.
> 
> Granted, I'm not an expert in this field, but given the fact that we currently have stocking programs in place, has anyone thought about stocking baitfish into Lakes Michigan and Huron to see if it will stimulate fish growth and bring back fish populations. I know we have a zebra mussell and goby problem but I would imagine so does L.O. and it still is able to produce bigger fish. If it's true that L.O. is replenished naturally, why can't we do artificially to L.M. and L.H.? Perhaps this solution was discussed before and we would probably have to cut down on our stockings but I personally would trade quantity for big, fat, healthy, quality fish anyday. Just my .02.


Wow!!! Those numbers on their site are staggering! I had no idea they had fish like that over there. Maybe I'll have to move...
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## salmo'dog (Aug 24, 2007)

fishn' 4 life said:


> Wow!!! Those numbers on their site are staggering! I had no idea they had fish like that over there. Maybe I'll have to move...
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


Good Point Big Phish !

Lake Ontario has a great fishery for salmon and brown trout for brutes and this is definately due in part by the baitfish populations.

There are a lot of opinions and facts that pertain to the Lake Michigan fishery, but for most of us, we are still perplexed as to why these impacts occur on fish numbers and size.


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## wartfroggy (Jan 25, 2007)

pikedevil said:


> I agree with everything you said except this last part about big fish, the fish are tiny this year, way way smaller than last year and a lot smaller than 2008 as well.


 I can't say that I would fully agree with that. Yes, the average size is down from "normal", but I would say up some from last year. I would say that the mature fish are a little bigger and healthier looking than last year. But either way, we have a long way to go to start seeing the old 20# average.


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## pikedevil (Feb 11, 2003)

big_phish said:


> Granted, I'm not an expert in this field, but given the fact that we currently have stocking programs in place, has anyone thought about stocking baitfish into Lakes Michigan and Huron to see if it will stimulate fish growth and bring back fish populations. I know we have a zebra mussell and goby problem but I would imagine so does L.O. and it still is able to produce bigger fish. If it's true that L.O. is replenished naturally, why can't we do artificially to L.M. and L.H.? Perhaps this solution was discussed before and we would probably have to cut down on our stockings but I personally would trade quantity for big, fat, healthy, quality fish anyday. Just my .02.


The problem is the baitfish have to be able to eat too, the very base of the foodchain starts with plankton and algaes, and thats whats dissapearing due to mussels. Lake ontario is the last lake on the chain of great lakes, and has a much higher nutrient load than lake michigan and can support more biomass, couple that with much deeper water than lake erie and boom you get alewives and huge kings. Another thing to keep in mind is lake michigan kings have adapted to primarily spawn at age 3 rather than 4, thus taking a full summer off their growth. While its not certain why this has occured in lake michigan it has not been the case on lake Ontario which still sees a high percentage of fish spawning at age 4.


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## salmo'dog (Aug 24, 2007)

pikedevil said:


> The problem is the baitfish have to be able to eat too, the very base of the foodchain starts with plankton and algaes, and thats whats dissapearing due to mussels. Lake ontario is the last lake on the chain of great lakes, and has a much higher nutrient load than lake michigan and can support more biomass, couple that with much deeper water than lake erie and boom you get alewives and huge kings. Another thing to keep in mind is lake michigan kings have adapted to primarily spawn at age 3 rather than 4, thus taking a full summer off their growth. While its not certain why this has occured in lake michigan it has not been the case on lake Ontario which still sees a high percentage of fish spawning at age 4.


Good point as well.


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## jomat (Jul 26, 2010)

Just to throw this out there.....the number of high 30's and even 40lb fish this year has been an anomoly. I believe last year the largest king caught in the LOC (which is a derby that runs basically all summer) was I believe 33 lbs or something like that. That being said they are very big this year, our steelhead runs have been very strong recently, and the numbers of browntrout creeled by lake anglers are staggering.

I'm sure nutrient loading has something to do with it, but yes we have the same issues with zebra mussels and gobies as you guys....in fact I believe we had them first/longest.

What I'm wondering is....does the DNR have somewhat accurate guestimations of the # of natural reproduced adult kings in the lake and how does that affect their stocking decisions. From studying your flow guages a bit the last few weeks it seems Michigan has substantially cooler water and more moderated flows than NY tribs. The only NY tribs that contribute in any significance to native kings are most likely the SR and maybe the niagara. If you guys are pumping out alot of native kings (from what i've read the PM run is all native), and not adjusting stocking programs it seems you might very well be putting too many fish in the lake for them to gain the kind of weight we see in our fish.

This has become a concern in NY as mandated baseline flows on the salmon river have helped out natural reproduction alot. We have begun clipping all hatchery released king smolts (just last year i think) in order to get some numbers around how many natives are out there eating up biomass.


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## pikedevil (Feb 11, 2003)

They have decreased stocking a lot over the years to try to balance out the predator/prey ratio. As for natural reproduction I have heard estimates that 50-80% of the kings in lake michigan are natural reproduced in any given year. They are able to tell this because they mark our smolts with a chemical called oxytetracycline which stains parts of the vertebrate and can later be viewed under microscope from dissected fish. Additional data is also gleaned from coded wire tagging studies. We have a number of quality tribs that produce plenty of wild kings including the big and little manistee, pm, betsie, white, muskegon, and many other smaller streams. Our kings are spawning at age 3 rather than 4 and that is a large reason for our smaller adult kings. It is widely theorized that lake michigan kings have adapted to spawn at age 3 due in large part due to a smaller population of adult alewives to prey upon. There is little biological benefit to staying in the lake a whole additional year and risking death (largely from trolling ) when they wont put on much additional weight and muscle mass.


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## wartfroggy (Jan 25, 2007)

pikedevil said:


> Our kings are spawning at age 3 rather than 4 and that is a large reason for our smaller adult kings. It is widely theorized that lake michigan kings have adapted to spawn at age 3 due in large part due to a smaller population of adult alewives to prey upon. There is little biological benefit to staying in the lake a whole additional year and risking death (largely from trolling ) when they wont put on much additional weight and muscle mass.


 Combine that with the practices that the DNR has used for years in collecting eggs, we are continueing to shift the population towards smaller and earlier running fish. Some of these practices have changed recently, but the effects are still felt. A limited # of collection locations to plant the entire system reduces the diversity of the gene pool, basically producing a man made bottle neck every year. This is after a very large bottle neck that occured when we first planted Lake Michigan. Combine that with short collection times in the past. Historically, the DNR would collect the first "X" number of fish that ran, so they were selecting for earlier running fish. This is likely why we see some fish that run in early July and hold in the river for a long time until they are ready to spawn. Another bottle neck that we created was from the husbandry practices that the DNR used. They used to use 1 male to fertilize many females, lowering diversity even more. Here is a pretty good article showing the changes the Lake Michigan salmon have made in comparison to the original stock. I haven't read through it in detail in a couple of years, but found it very interesting while doing some research in college. 
http://www.michigandnr.com/PUBLICATIONS/PDFS/ifr/ifrlibra/research/reports/2032rr.pdf


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## vano397 (Sep 15, 2006)

Just a response to questions about baitfish stocking... I did notice while looking into the musky stocking programs that they are working on herring stocking for the drowned river mouths...I know this is more of a musky bait, but it is a smaller baitfish that is less dependant on plankton than are alewives. I am curious how this effort will turn out, and possibly effect the salmon fishery. I also saw a study on husbandry of whitefish.


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## pikedevil (Feb 11, 2003)

vano397 said:


> Just a response to questions about baitfish stocking... I did notice while looking into the musky stocking programs that they are working on herring stocking for the drowned river mouths...I know this is more of a musky bait, but it is a smaller baitfish that is less dependant on plankton than are alewives. I am curious how this effort will turn out, and possibly effect the salmon fishery. I also saw a study on husbandry of whitefish.



They were stocking lake herring in limited numbers on lake huron in an attempt to bolster the recovery of the population. Herring (cisco) are native to the great lakes but through competition with alewives and other invasive species the population collapsed. When the alewives collapsed on lake huron and the salmon followed the DNR saw oppurtunity for lake herring to make a comeback, hence the stocking effort. While lake herring are a potential food source for salmon, thats not the intention of the stocking, and a forage base based on lake herring will never support a chinook population the size that Lake huron once had or lake michigan currently has.


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## PDS (Jul 10, 2009)

I took a kayak down the Little Manistee from a campground to 9 Mile bridge about 3 weeks ago. I saw quite a few salmon in the river, but didn't see anything in the 20 lb. range...probably more like 15 or so.


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## salmon fever (Aug 10, 2006)

Wow, I opened up a big can of worms with this post. GOOD STUFF guys, keep it coming!


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## Fishslayer5789 (Mar 1, 2007)

I caught a nice king trolling on my 12 foot boat last night. If it wasn't 20 lbs, it was pretty darn close and measured 39 inches.


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## Toga (Nov 11, 2009)

Whoa nice king!


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## Mussin (Jul 9, 2010)

Awesome fish!! Cant wait Me and some friends are heading up in 2 weeks..


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## salmon killer (Jul 9, 2010)

ooooh daddy like!!!


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