# Coho spawning today



## FishMichv2 (Oct 18, 2004)

I came across a pair of coho spawning today. It got me thinking. What's the latest or earliest or oddest time you've seen a salmon or steelhead on gravel? Or oddest place you've come across those species? Pretty sure this is the latest I've seen a salmon. I caught a laker in the Boardman in August a few years back which seemed way early to me. I've seen huge pods of Coho run up the Platte in late summer and then leave and not show up for over a week again.


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## Fishndude (Feb 22, 2003)

I was fishing the Boyne River for Steelhead in April, one year, and came across a holdover male Coho that was pitch Black. It must have spent the entire winter in the river, cuz there was no color on it, except for black. It might have been a 10# fish, and it scooted right away as I walked the bank. I went over that same section daily for a few days, and it was always in a fairly small area, somewhere.


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## Grinnell (Nov 20, 2019)

We ran into some spawning coho on the little manistee one new year- by peacock


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## FishMichv2 (Oct 18, 2004)

Fishndude said:


> I was fishing the Boyne River for Steelhead in April, one year, and came across a holdover male Coho that was pitch Black. It must have spent the entire winter in the river, cuz there was no color on it, except for black. It might have been a 10# fish, and it scooted right away as I walked the bank. I went over that same section daily for a few days, and it was always in a fairly small area, somewhere.


Wow, April, that's pretty wild. He probably never found a partner.


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## ausable_steelhead (Sep 30, 2002)

Kings-early January Au Sable river
Coho-mid March NW unmentionable
Steelhead-early July Au Sable river
LRB-mid March NE unmentionable
Atlantic-late January Au Sable river


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## o_mykiss (May 21, 2013)

I caught a loose and running hen brown in the St. Joe in May a few years ago. That was a pleasant surprise

There's always genetic oddballs floating out there


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## riverbob (Jan 11, 2011)

steelhead full of eggs on opening day of bass season, on a soft shell crab, king in april both fish came outa the grand


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## brianlc39 (Jan 27, 2013)

Female Coho full of loose spawn in the Little Manistee on opening day of trout season a few years ago - up by Irons


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## NWMichiganOutdoors (Aug 7, 2019)

We caught 20 cohos the morning after Christmas this year on a trib I fish. My dad caught 4 this past weekend


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## NWMichiganOutdoors (Aug 7, 2019)

Expecting to see them into feb and march


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## B.Jarvinen (Jul 12, 2014)

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.co...ring-run-chinook-salmon-its-all-in-the-genes/


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## Cork Dust (Nov 26, 2012)

Prior dam construction, there were various demes and species of salmon in the Snake and Columbia rivers nearly year around. When the dams were completed and the runs began to diminish, USACE personnel began egg taking and rearing operations, taking their annual quota of eggs needed from a specific interval of the run. Their efforts essentially functioned as the selection pressure to de-select for these wild races of Pacific salmon from propagating, pushing them into decline.


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## toto (Feb 16, 2000)

I've seen them as late as Jan 1st on the extreme lower Platte years ago. I would assume it would take a while for them to get up to spawning gravel from there.



There's always genetic oddballs floating out there[/QUOTE]

There's a few of these around here too, just sayin.....


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## Cork Dust (Nov 26, 2012)

toto said:


> I've seen them as late as Jan 1st on the extreme lower Platte years ago. I would assume it would take a while for them to get up to spawning gravel from there.
> 
> 
> 
> There's always genetic oddballs floating out there


There's a few of these around here too, just sayin.....[/QUOTE]

In population biology, a major tenet is that diversity ensures stability of an ecosystem.


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## tda513 (Oct 24, 2011)

Caught a male steelhead on Dec 9th this year that milted all over the inside of my boat.


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## mfs686 (Mar 15, 2007)

Back in the 80's, when lake Huron still had salmon, I was turkey hunting one spring. Heard some splashing on a feeder creek of the Pine River. Walked over to investigate and there were some Kings mixed in with the Steelhead doing their thing.


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## sgc (Oct 21, 2007)

FishMichv2 said:


> Wow, April, that's pretty wild. He probably never found a partner.


Seems like theres a life lesson there!


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## GRUNDY (Jun 18, 2005)

I've seen some black nasty coho heading back to the lake in the lower river I fish. This would be late December/January. Probably not so rare though


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## Cork Dust (Nov 26, 2012)

There now is a summer run of chinook in the St. Marys rapids in the Canadian Sault.


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## SJC (Sep 3, 2002)

View media item 124283View media item 124285Well, this happened in late October of last year. Used to get quite a few fall looseies when they planted Arlee around here. That's what I'm guessing this one was. Wisconsin still plants them and it looks like this one has a poor LV clip. They are always bright red with the females colored up like males. Never saw them actually bedding, just lying around full of ripe eggs. Wish we still had some as they provided great surf fishing and guilt free spawn.

I have also caught loose browns in April, a milting king on Easter Sunday, a 20# loose chrome king on 1-01-2000, caught tight steel and witnessed spawners in mid June. Fish enough and you are bound to see things...


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## piscatorial warrior (Sep 14, 2011)

I saw what looked like a Steelhead of about 5# making a Redd last July in the Ausable. She was all alone. :sad:


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## B.Jarvinen (Jul 12, 2014)

Caught a 17” Rainbow full of spawn in the Hated Fish River last mid-July. Eggs had eyes going but weren’t completely loose from the skein. It was sitting on a common redd area. 

In mid-June I caught a regular Great Lakes Steelhead with loose eggs in what an acquaintance calls the River of Year-Round Steelhead, but that was less surprising as I have seen pods of Steelhead on gravel in the first half of June before. 

And have seen Coho landed in mid-February in the NW Lower.


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## Cork Dust (Nov 26, 2012)

B.Jarvinen said:


> Caught a 17” Rainbow full of spawn in the Hated Fish River last mid-July. Eggs had eyes going but weren’t completely loose from the skein. It was sitting on a common redd area.
> 
> In mid-June I caught a regular Great Lakes Steelhead with loose eggs in what an acquaintance calls the River of Year-Round Steelhead, but that was less surprising as I have seen pods of Steelhead on gravel in the first half of June before.
> 
> And have seen Coho landed in mid-February in the NW Lower.


Do you know whether this river has ever resceived Umpqua, Siletz, Rogue or Skamania strain steelhead plants? There are all summer-run strains that used to be planted, mostly in downstate streams, but also in the UP.


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## B.Jarvinen (Jul 12, 2014)

From the fish stocking database it looks like one small attempt with “Shasta” in 1994 and otherwise always “Michigan” across 43 times.

That fish seemed to probably be a resident fish, not in from the Lakes. No heft to it, at all. 17”. A river of skinny fish usually; I think long stretches of flowing over bedrock might limit its productivity. I only kept it because water temp was in low 70s and it wasn’t reviving. Quite a surprise when I filleted it.


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## TroutFishingBear (Aug 31, 2007)

As far as Michigan these days, any salmon or steelhead I see is a shock any time of year.


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## salmon_slayer06 (Mar 19, 2006)

the steelhead fishery has been decimated up here. last few years seen the absolute best spawning conditions for the steelhead and those fingerlings only to be greeted by millions of hungry lake trout. This should have been a good year with numbers according to the stocking database. Haven't caught very many if any clipped fish. what the hell is going on around here? Is there that many fish being bonked in the river and during the spring runs? WTF


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## AdamBradley (Mar 13, 2008)

I think we all should go walleye fishing Manistee lake.... could help us all out for steelhead returns! In my opinion, there are tons more guys fishing the river the past 4 years or so compared to the 8 years prior. I’m sure there is an increased net harvest, but person by person, those that I knew kept fish often seem to be releasing most/all in the past few years.... to test your theory, let’s see what happens in a couple years with unclipped fish. We should see a massive increase since there was basically no fishing/harvest in the river this year.... as far as limited observations and reports on clipped vs no clip that I’ve seen and talked to guys about, Manistee has a mix for sure this season. Those that I have caught - none had an adipose.


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## riverbob (Jan 11, 2011)

salmon_slayer06 said:


> the steelhead fishery has been decimated up here. last few years seen the absolute best spawning conditions for the steelhead and those fingerlings only to be greeted by millions of hungry lake trout. This should have been a good year with numbers according to the stocking database. Haven't caught very many if any clipped fish. what the hell is going on around here? Is there that many fish being bonked in the river and during the spring runs? WTF


 ya,, them damn snake trout, i think the great lakes would be better off with a lot less of them swimming around


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## FishMichv2 (Oct 18, 2004)

SJC said:


> View media item 124283View media item 124285Well, this happened in late October of last year. Used to get quite a few fall looseies when they planted Arlee around here. That's what I'm guessing this one was. Wisconsin still plants them and it looks like this one has a poor LV clip. They are always bright red with the females colored up like males. Never saw them actually bedding, just lying around full of ripe eggs. Wish we still had some as they provided great surf fishing and guilt free spawn.
> 
> I have also caught loose browns in April, a milting king on Easter Sunday, a 20# loose chrome king on 1-01-2000, caught tight steel and witnessed spawners in mid June. Fish enough and you are bound to see things...


I think I caught one of those a few years back on the PM.


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## Fishndude (Feb 22, 2003)

AdamBradley said:


> to test your theory, let’s see what happens in a couple years with unclipped fish. We should see a massive increase since there was basically no fishing/harvest in the river this year.... as far as limited observations and reports on clipped vs no clip that I’ve seen and talked to guys about, Manistee has a mix for sure this season. Those that I have caught - none had an adipose.


You know that Steelhead don't just hatch, and migrate out to the Great Lakes, like King Salmon, right? They need to spend 1-3 years in the river they are hatched in, before they smolt. So while there was probably a ton of good spawning @ Steelhead in 2020, that doesn't necessarily mean that there will be tons more Smolts that out-migrate, and a ton more adults that return, 3-4 years after they are hatched. Beyond having enough spawning fish to lay fertilized eggs, the biggest factor for successful natural reproduction of Steelhead is the carrying capacity of any particular stream, or river. If the river, or stream can only support 20,000 Steelhead Parr, then it won't matter if 1,000,000 hatch. That's one of the reasons the Mussels are so devastating - they remove nutrients from rivers, which reduces the carrying capacity, which results in reduced natural reproduction. 

40 years ago there were more people fishing for Salmon, and Steelhead, than there are now. And limits were 5, and people took their limits a lot. There were way more guides on the rivers, and the lakes. And there were lots of fish. Things changed, and there simply aren't the returns we used to have. I remember a DNR Biologist telling me that they figured the Ausable got around a 15% return on Steelhead plants, back then. And they planted 160,000 Steelhead/year. 24,000 Steelhead returning to a river that is 10 miles long (maybe) in a year made for a pretty spectacular fishery.


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## GRUNDY (Jun 18, 2005)

I have a bad feeling about all this...


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## jeepgod (Apr 29, 2015)

GRUNDY said:


> I have a bad feeling about all this...


It would not surprise me, years down the road when things get way out of hand, the states/country come together to kill off large portions of the great lakes similarly to what they do in inland lakes and start from scratch. Those will be desperate times and hopefully it will never get that bad.

Things will only be worse as time goes on and ppl keep trying to manage problem areas. It's like whack-a-mole


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## Fishndude (Feb 22, 2003)

I saw a big ray of hope, not too long ago.

https://www.michigan-sportsman.com/forum/threads/quaggas-successfully-removed.712215/


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## nichola8 (Oct 7, 2013)

Mid March:

A few years back I caught a old beat up big buck coho up by the dam on the White, caught it on a purple hair jig and waxies.

Same day, went mid river and caught a steelhead and a mid sized dark not beat up coho hen on the same set-up.


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## METTLEFISH (Jan 31, 2009)

Cork Dust said:


> Do you know whether this river has ever resceived Umpqua, Siletz, Rogue or Skamania strain steelhead plants? There are all summer-run strains that used to be planted, mostly in downstate streams, but also in the UP.


All of those are naturally spawning in the wild. They can be found in any river with the right habitat.


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