# Little Manistee Weir Update



## M. Tonello (Sep 20, 2002)

FYI- we turned the pumps on yesterday, so fish are now entered the facility. We are tentatively looking at early next week to get the egg take started, although we may handle a few fish later this week to assess ripeness.


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## BMARKS (Nov 6, 2017)

i know in the past there have been opportunities for viewing and or participating in the egg take. will that be a thing this year or are covid concerns still stopping that from happening?


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## nighttime (Nov 25, 2007)

I think seen that it’s not open to public viewing due to the Covid thing.


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## M. Tonello (Sep 20, 2002)

Unfortunately that is the case. The site is still open to the public- the parking lot, the viewing platform, etc., and of course people can still fish. But the egg take building will not be open to the public this year. Sorry about that.


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## BMARKS (Nov 6, 2017)

Awesome, i wanted to take the daughter to look at all the fish. should be able to see some in the pens from the platforms anyways. thanks for the info.


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## Ricky Bubbles (Apr 1, 2019)

I was up there on Wednesday, and there were some bigguns in the pens!


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## M. Tonello (Sep 20, 2002)

We did a ripeness check and the females were only 10% ripe. So we'll hold off until next week to start the egg take. Stay tuned!


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## Quig7557 (Dec 31, 2008)

Thank you for the report. Is the degree of ripeness a indication of where the spring spawning run is, on this and other nearby rivers?


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## adam bomb (Feb 27, 2006)

M. Tonello said:


> We did a ripeness check and the females were only 10% ripe. So we'll hold off until next week to start the egg take. Stay tuned!


Seeing decent numbers then? Or a slow trickle? 


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## MT2MI (Jun 4, 2016)

Neither! Mud flats where I have hooked fish before!


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## M. Tonello (Sep 20, 2002)

Quig7557 said:


> Thank you for the report. Is the degree of ripeness a indication of where the spring spawning run is, on this and other nearby rivers?


Not necessarily, since the "run" on any given river consists of fish that have come in at all times since last fall. The fish we have in the weir right now are relatively recent arrivals within the past few weeks.


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## M. Tonello (Sep 20, 2002)

adam bomb said:


> Seeing decent numbers then? Or a slow trickle?
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Michigan Sportsman


I haven't been down there, but from what I'm hearing, more like a slow trickle. We need rain!


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## bam981126 (Jan 14, 2013)

How’s those females looking today? I’ll be heading up Wednesday night


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## riverbob (Jan 11, 2011)

bam981126 said:


> How’s those females looking today? I’ll be heading up Wednesday night


 not bad, they look better as u get closer to closing time/last call, oop's,,, i couldn't help it


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## Waif (Oct 27, 2013)

riverbob said:


> not bad, they look better as u get closer to closing time/last call, oop's,,, i couldn't help it


Hittin the Hof again? L.o.l..


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## M. Tonello (Sep 20, 2002)

Looks like tomorrow will be the first day of steelhead egg take at the Little Manistee Weir. Again, due to covid restrictions, the public will not be allowed inside the gate. Sorry about that. I'll try to post a report tomorrow afternoon/evening on how it went.


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## MoJoRisin' (Jan 30, 2004)

I'll be up probably on Thursday to see what's up. Need some fresh air.


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## dirtyfisheyes187 (Jul 12, 2017)

How’s the egg take going


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## M. Tonello (Sep 20, 2002)

Steelhead egg take day 1 at the Little Manistee Weir is complete. We spawned 231 females, and passed a total of 364 steelhead. The big fish of the day was 17.6 lbs. We'll be going again tomorrow.


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## John Hine (Mar 31, 2019)

Nice! Those seem like decent numbers to me. & a 17 pounder!


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## M. Tonello (Sep 20, 2002)

Change of plans. Our females are still not ripe enough! So we'll hold off for a bit longer.


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## M. Tonello (Sep 20, 2002)

New info- Looks like thursday will be the final day. I can't make it that day but I'll still try to update if I can. Hopefully this warmer weather ripens up those stubborn females!


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## bam981126 (Jan 14, 2013)

Are we still at the 900-1000. Thread got a little sidetracked...


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## Vicious Fishous (Sep 12, 2006)

Plenty of these little boogers around. Little river is LOW for spring, much like everywhere else.


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## Macs13 (Apr 24, 2019)

M. Tonello said:


> New info- Looks like thursday will be the final day. I can't make it that day but I'll still try to update if I can. Hopefully this warmer weather ripens up those stubborn females!


I just watched an old YouTube about the tunk hole with you in it. Pretty cool stuff about the erosion control planning on the big man. I heard from the guys at Pappy's tackle shop last week that there have been a good number of sturgeon sightings, so that hard work by the DNR must be paying off. Now if you could just install a fish winch for the steps on the consumers side, it would be perfect. 

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## Steve (Jan 15, 2000)

Macs13 said:


> I just watched an old YouTube about the tunk hole with you in it. Pretty cool stuff about the erosion control planning on the big man. I heard from the guys at Pappy's tackle shop last week that there have been a good number of sturgeon sightings, so that hard work by the DNR must be paying off. Now if you could just install a fish winch for the steps on the consumers side, it would be perfect.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G988U using Michigan Sportsman mobile app


Got a link to that YouTube video?


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## Macs13 (Apr 24, 2019)

Steve said:


> Got a link to that YouTube video?








I was trying to figure out which hole I drove to when I was exploring two trackers along the big man last week and I came across this video. 

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## M. Tonello (Sep 20, 2002)

Sorry guys, I've been out of town, just got back. Apparently they were able to finish the egg take last thursday. I'm assuming they pulled the weir as soon as they were done. Sounds like the final tally of steelhead passed was 1,611.


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## toto (Feb 16, 2000)

Hey Mark, just for S's & G's, just how many eggs are we talking about here; obviously I'm not asking you to count every egg, just a pretty good approximate. Thanks.


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## M. Tonello (Sep 20, 2002)

Toto,
The egg numbers were just shy of 5 million.


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## toto (Feb 16, 2000)

Can you plant them all in this area? 👿 just kidding I know you can't.


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## riverman (Jan 9, 2002)

What is the survival/hatch percentage on average that make it to raceway?


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## riverbob (Jan 11, 2011)

riverman said:


> What is the survival/hatch percentage on average that make it to raceway?


pardon my stupidity, what do u mean by, to the raceway, whats the raceway?,,,,,,,,,,,,,, thanks


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## riverman (Jan 9, 2002)

Raceway (aquaculture) - Wikipedia







en.m.wikipedia.org


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## CaughtMoreCatfishOnTinder (Oct 2, 2019)

riverman said:


> What is the survival/hatch percentage on average that make it to raceway?


It’s something like 85-95% from eggs to smolt from mr. google. Probably similar to MDNR’s numbers


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## SJC (Sep 3, 2002)

How many females did they take eggs from? I always thought that our steelhead yielded an average of 2-3000 eggs. This number must be way off.


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## M. Tonello (Sep 20, 2002)

We took eggs from a total of 754 females.


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## toto (Feb 16, 2000)

The math works, from what I can deduce. 5,000,000 eggs divided by 754 females comes out to 6600 +/- eggs per female. Sounds like a number that fits into what I"ve heard they can produce. From my understanding these fish can produce up to 7500 eggs per female, so it may sound high but the math works.


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## drallam (Dec 31, 2019)

Mark, what will go on with the fertilized eggs now. As far as what do you biologist do with these eggs now?


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## riverbob (Jan 11, 2011)

toto said:


> The math works, from what I can deduce. 5,000,000 eggs divided by 754 females comes out to 6600 +/- eggs per female. Sounds like a number that fits into what I"ve heard they can produce. From my understanding these fish can produce up to 7500 eggs per female, so it may sound high but the math works.


i was going to do the math, but u did,,, thanks


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## Fishndude (Feb 22, 2003)

drallam said:


> Mark, what will go on with the fertilized eggs now. As far as what do you biologist do with these eggs now?


Why not make a day of it, and visit a couple hatcheries, where the Steelhead are hatched, and raised? You can find all sorts of great information about the entire process, there. 









Thompson State Fish Hatchery


Thompson




www.michigan.gov













Wolf Lake State Fish Hatchery & Visitor Center


Wolf Lake




www.michigan.gov


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## M. Tonello (Sep 20, 2002)

drallam said:


> Mark, what will go on with the fertilized eggs now. As far as what do you biologist do with these eggs now?


The fertilized eggs went to the hatcheries on the same day they were harvested. The eggs will start out in stacks of drip through trays, where they will hatch out. Once hatched, the fry will go into raceways. As they grow, they'll be moved into larger raceways to give them more space. Then next year around this time (or a little earlier), they'll be stocked out as yearlings.


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## M. Tonello (Sep 20, 2002)

Also- Fishndude is right. A visit to one of the hatcheries is well worth the time if you're in the area.


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## Ricky Bubbles (Apr 1, 2019)

M. Tonello said:


> Also- Fishndude is right. A visit to one of the hatcheries is well worth the time if you're in the area.


From my understanding the hatcheries are currently closed to the public - at least the Harrietta Hatchery and Manistee egg-take facility were when I went there.


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## M. Tonello (Sep 20, 2002)

You might be right on that. I'd call before visiting. For whatever reason they still let me in lol.


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## TroutFishingBear (Aug 31, 2007)

Hey Mark, Any yellow/gold phenotypes occur for these steelhead? As a kid we had a field trip to the rifle creek fish hatchery in western colorado where I grew up, and i remember seeing a couple banana yellow rainbows...was told about 1 in a million turn out that way. Would be awesome to catch a banana-colored steelhead.


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## SJC (Sep 3, 2002)

toto said:


> The math works, from what I can deduce. 5,000,000 eggs divided by 754 females comes out to 6600 +/- eggs per female. Sounds like a number that fits into what I"ve heard they can produce. From my understanding these fish can produce up to 7500 eggs per female, so it may sound high but the math works.


I was just thrown off with the 5 mil total since I was told the 2-3000 per number by a DNR biologist. I also remember reading similar numbers for great lakes steelhead in one of my steelhead books. It also read that supersized steelhead in some Pacific tribs can produce close to 10,000 eggs. It doesn't really matter, and a quick search didn't turn up much...




__





Rainbow Trout






www.lakesuperiorstreams.org


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## toto (Feb 16, 2000)

I know, it's sounds crazy but I'll have to take Marks word on it, but again, if my memory serves me well enough from years ago, it seems like the number of eggs per female was higher than one would expect.

I'm not sure if this will help, but it may so here goes:









Steelhead trout - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org


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