# This years Salmon plant



## Slodrift (Oct 28, 2006)

I attended a meeting with Lake Huron Sportfishing (LHS) last Thur night, this year they will be planting 230,000 Chinook along with and additional 30,000 Steelhead. The Steelhead will be in addition to the regular plant and will arrive 1 week before the Salmon and will be held in the pens with the Salmon for approx 3 weeks. Once they are ready to release they are going to take half of the fish both Steel and Salmon by truck and realease them at Rea Rd, the remaining half will be released right from the pens. They are also looking into extending the intake tubes for the pens out into the middle of the AS, instead of drawing the water from VanEtten but need to be sure they can do this and have the tubes withstand the flows and not interfere with boats going up and down the river. It won't be this spring that they extend the tubes but are hoping to do it by next spring. They acknowledge that a lot of the Salmon that do happen to return are going into VanEtten and are trying to solve that by extending the tubes. 

They are also working on starting a fall Steelhead and Brown plant, it won't happen this fall but with a little luck by the fall of 2010. They are also looking into a Atlantic Salmon plant in the future, these are some of the things LHS is doing to bring more angling opurtunities to the AuSable river. When all this additional stocking starts to take place more volunteers will be needed to sit with the fish while in the pens. You sit in shifts of 4 hours and monitor water temp, make sure the pumps are running and clean intake and discharge screens. They have a heated trailer set up with a VCR and TV and there are grills there to cook on if you'd like. LHS is looking to inlarge it's membership and anyone is welcome to join, this group has some very good projects in the works and if you have the time I encourage you to come to a meeting, the next meeting is scheduled for March 25th in Oscoda at the Yaht Club and last about an hour and a half. Things will never improve over night but in time and with groups such as ASBWPA and LHS working on the problems I think it's for sure headed in the right direction.

Ok, let the Salmon bashing begin........


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## ausable_steelhead (Sep 30, 2002)

I think it's cool. A brown plant would sweet, and a brown run up the A would be real sweet. Splitting the plants isn't a bad idea, I just hope those steelhead smolts don't get bothersome upriver, as a lot of them die from being hooked and mis-handled. A good portion of the kings do run VanEttan, and it's good that they are thinking about the river fishery for once, instead of just the lake. I'm real strong on planting the browns though, and instead of wasting the money on getting atlantics going(I doubt it would work), put more browns in or maybe try skams again?.


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## Ron Matthews (Aug 10, 2006)

Ok, let the Salmon bashing begin........[/quote}

There's Nothing wrong with Kings, They make the perfect air tight packaging for my Steelhead Bait!!:evilsmile
Stay's fresh that way....
I'm sure glad to hear that Good News


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## Slodrift (Oct 28, 2006)

ausable_steelhead said:


> I just hope those steelhead smolts don't get bothersome upriver, as a lot of them die from being hooked and mis-handled.


They won't receive their fish until the first week of May and by the time they are ready to be released your looking at around the 3rd week of May, hopefully by then a lot of the angling pressure will be winding down, unless there is a late run of course. Most of the Cormorants should be gone by then and the little fishies will just have to worry about getting by the Walleye and Lakers.

One other thing I forgot to mention, the County Drain Commisioner was at the meeting and told us they were working on getting a fish ladder installed at VanEtten Dam, which would open up an opportunity to get some of these Salmon by boat in VanEtten Lake. He told us to watch for updates in the paper so I'll keep you updated when I see something.


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## MrFysch (Feb 9, 2008)

Be nice if they could restore the fishery. Slodrift ur efforts dont get applauded enuff. Speaking of Skamanias its dissapointing the state never kept this program what it was 15 years ago. Several winters the skamanias sustained the winter fishery when we didint get much of a fall run of our michigan strain fish. I have a pic of a 43 inch skam caught on a west side steam years ago. Was guiding that day and my client caught it. Was a awesome buck but was only 14lbs and some change being it was in march and the fish had been there since fall . Longest steelhead i ever had the pleasure of puttin my hands on!


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## tommy-n (Jan 9, 2004)

It all sounds good on paper, just need to get the fish to actually return to the ausable rather than lake michigan tribs or canada.


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## autumnlovr (Jul 21, 2003)

Slodrift said:


> One other thing I forgot to mention, the County Drain Commisioner was at the meeting and told us they were working on getting a fish ladder installed at VanEtten Dam, which would open up an opportunity to get some of these Salmon by boat in VanEtten Lake. He told us to watch for updates in the paper so I'll keep you updated when I see something.


Cool! Our place is across the street from VanEttan.


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## ausable_steelhead (Sep 30, 2002)

> It all sounds good on paper, just need to get the fish to actually return to the ausable rather than lake michigan tribs or canada.


The only fish going over to Lake Michigan are kings. Canada does get a fair amount of steelhead plant's, but not every year. Some years, we get some of their fish. The biggest problem with the steelhead run has been heavy cormorant predation.


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## TheUrbanMustache (Sep 23, 2008)

and the walleyes IMO


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## ausable_steelhead (Sep 30, 2002)

> and the walleyes IMO


Yup, and lakers.....


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## KrossJr (Jan 20, 2009)

Great news..


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## Ron Matthews (Aug 10, 2006)

Slodrift} They are also working on starting a fall Steelhead and Brown plant said:


> This is One of the Best Ideas I've Heard In A While.
> With the Bird thing in spring, The Walleye's in spring and The Lakers in the Spring this might be a Great way to have 'some' make it no matter the situation.
> I also Really like the idea of spreading the plants around to different locations at diff times -imo- I think it'd really help..
> 
> ...


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