Thanks for the response, with the decrease of stocking you would see a increase in natural or all natural Kings compared to stock fish. we're down to stocking 3 million Kings a year what is the Fisheries figuring on the number of Naturals? And of course they could swing big time from year to year do to lake levels which impact River levels. I seen posted the last couple years the returns in Michigan Rivers were down 80 to 90%. So that would leave most of these natural fish coming from rivers from Lake Huron Waters. Another thing if you were trying to build the alewives population or the bait population why not increase limits on Lakers to 5 or more since they're so plentiful and naturally reproducing plus stop or make huge cuts in stocking of them.
Wild reproduction varies (sometimes considerably) on a yearly basis, in part depending like you said on river levels and conditions, forage in the lake, and probably lots of other factors. But primarily it's about conditions in the rivers and the lake. Estimates of wild smolt production have ranged between 1.5 and 7 million per year over the past decade. 2013 was the low year at about 1.5 million (following low lake levels, a hot and dry fall of 2012 with poor runs in Michigan rivers). That rebounded to just under 4 million the very next year in 2014. And for 2016 the estimate was about 4.2 million - those are the big fish you are catching right now. So, despite relatively constant stocking numbers 2013-2016, 2016's reproduction was 280% that of 2013
It seems logical that the percentage of wild fish should go UP if stocking is cut, all else being equal. However, that hasn't always been the case. There's a lot of factors in play there. One is that survival to adulthood is controlled in large part by the forage available in the lake. Bad yearclasses of stocked fish survival coincides with bad survival of wild smolts too, because the same factors affect both - namely, predation of smolts in the big lake and lack of food in the lake. Baby kings need baby alewives to really boost their survival. And the entire reason we reduced stocking is because we were concerned about the amount of forage in the lake, and survival of all chinooks was not the best. I'm confident that if you had reduced stocking in the early 2000s when there was a lot more forage, the proportion of wild fish would have certainly gone up.
Another factor is that some wild fish likely come from stocked parents, so when stocking is reduced it's possible that wild reproduction diminished in proportion to the stocking reduction. And finally, there may be feedback mechanisms between stocking and wild reproduction that we can't adequately measure or consistently understand. In some cases, stocking of salmonids has been shown to depress wild reproduction, because the stocked smolts are bigger than wild smolts at the same age, and hog all the resources. But the stocked smolts might not be as "reproductively fit" than the wild fish, which evolved to reproduce in a certain system, rather than getting spoon fed pellets in a hatchery.
It's a big system and there are so many changing variables at one time that it's pretty difficult to disentangle them and figure out just what is responsible for what.
In terms of the lake trout, Indiana raised the limit to 3 fish, and Wisconsin raised theirs to 5. There's really not enough harvest of lake trout within Indiana waters to make a dent in the overall population - most of the lake trout fishing by boats launching from Indiana ports actually happens in Michigan waters.
Frankly, the number of anglers that will go out and harvest 5 lake trout in Wisconsin is probably not that much. If there are silver fish there, people don't target or keep lake trout.
I just looked at all the boat interviews from 2000-2016 that Indiana creel clerks recorded. Of a total of 9,889 interviews, only 162 harvested their full bag of 2 lake trout per angler if fishing in Indiana waters or 3/person in Michigan waters. 344 of those nearly 10,000 trips harvested 5 lake trout, regardless of the number of anglers aboard. The main reason for that is that most people are targeting silver fish, with the exception of charters when there are few silver fish to be had. I don't expect Wisconsin to be any different. A few people will probably take their full 5-fish limit of lakers but not nearly enough to put a dent in things. I would expect the stocking reductions of lake trout that just occurred recently would have a larger effect in lake trout numbers than a bag limit increase, just due to angler behavior. The Classic is a great example - very few lakers weighed, because there were kings around
Michigan did propose more lake trout reductions but the sticking point is that they have mostly eliminated stockings in the non-treaty waters, so the tribes have to sign off on reductions and there are a lot of politics involved with that. Not sure of the current status of that plan. The consent decree is coming up for negotiation/renewal in 2020 and I am sure that will be a huge part of any lake trout stocking up there
The mid-lake reef (~300K off the top of my head) and the Julian's reef in Illinois (~120k) is all that is left of lake trout outside the treaty waters. I think with the amount of wild reproduction coming out of Julian's Reef, that those stockings should be next on the cut list, but that is just my personal opinion.
