# Big trout need home in the UP



## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

Big trout need home in the UP 

MARQUETTE -- About 140 years ago, Robert Barnwell Roosevelt passed through Detroit on his way to Sault Ste. Marie to begin a two-month fishing trip.
After reaching streams that empty into Lake Superior, Roosevelt caught numerous fish he described as red trout in his book "Superior Fishing," published in 1864. The trout actually were coasters, a migratory form of brook trout that averaged three to four pounds and could exceed 10. Roosevelt and his friends caught them by the hundreds. 

http://www.freep.com/sports/outdoors/eric18_20031218.htm


----------



## Beave (Aug 26, 2002)

When I was younger ~13 or so, we caught a big lake run brook trout (maybe 6 pounds) trolling off the pierhead of Grand Haven. We thought it was a laker at first but it was really pretty and had way too much red in it. There are a couple of strains of Lake Trout, one that gets quite bright red in the fins and such during spawning, so that was what we though it must be.

We ran into a DNR biologist at the launch who was doing a fish survery of some sort though, and he told us it was a coaster and he was shocked to see one that far south and they didn't even think Lake Michigan had them anymore. He was an old guy, probably 60 or so. He asked if the DNR could have the fish to study it and we gave it to him. We gave him our address too but never heard anything back.


----------



## ESOX (Nov 20, 2000)

I found this part interesting:

*"The lake trout population is very high," Scott said. "We're seeing growth slowing down, so it might be near carrying capacity. There's a lot of competition for the forage fish. We've found chinook salmon in lake trout stomachs, and we've also found waterfowl bones and terrestrial insects. This means that the lake trout are feeding in the entire water column. * 

Maybe NOT planting any more Chinooks in the L Superior watershed would help allow things to return to the natural balance that was in place before man screwed things up so badly.


----------



## secondgear (Nov 19, 2003)

Wow a Ten pound brookie? I remember hearing about coasters but never seem one. I guess they are not many. I think some were as far south as Alpena?


----------



## multibeard (Mar 3, 2002)

I always wonder what would have happened if that IDIOT fisheries supervisor in the UP had dumped those brookies that he didn't know what to do with into the great lakes. Instead he dumped them into a landfill. What a waste.


----------



## WAUB-MUKWA (Dec 13, 2003)

Lake trout. The carnivore of the great lakes, nothing gets past this huge predator.


----------

