TOPIC:

The coho are definitly feeding on 2 to 3 in shad. Most of all of them I have
caught lately have been full of them.

KingSeeker wrote:

The coho are definitly feeding on 2 to 3 in shad. Most of all of them I have
caught lately have been full of them.

Hope that means a hot early season  thin fin coho bite! 
I'm more than ready
 

If a 5 fish limit could be imposed Ben would it have a negative impact on the population? In my limited experience fishing the lake it seems not very many anglers actually chase Lakers and those that are  caught usually by catch. If fishing is slow sometimes my boat would put a lure on the bottom to try to pick a fight with one. Seen a lot just caught and returned. 
One question I would ask about is when do the lakers turn on the rainbow race and become a viable food source for them and are they a significant predator?
I should say other than charter boats I don't see a bunch of anglers chasing them.

Evidently all the fish I caught early this year were full of shad not alewives and I'm too ignorant to realize it. I need to pay closer attention to detail in more ways than one if I'm ever gonna get good at this. Thank you guys for sharing your knowledge.

meh I dont think it matters what they are feeding on Todd - if they are there you can catch them.  Location, Location, Location.

If my recollection is at all accurate, at a "State of the Lake" presentation by the DNR biologists about 2 years ago, they spoke about the treaty with the Indians covering mid-Lake Michigan all the way North.  In it they said it did not effect us too much because the Indians, by treaty, were netting at or near the bottom of the lake and were mainly harvesting  lakers and white fish.  I recall the number of lakers they were harvested was insanly high.  Is my recall close to being right?  If it is, what would the laker population look like if were not for the Indians?

Yes, commercial harvest of lake trout in the tribal waters is extremely high - the mortality up north of the fish is much, much higher than down south. One of the reasons that successful reproduction occurs on the south end moreso than the north. They also have higher sea lamprey mortality up north due to the proximity to some large sea lamprey producing areas

In terms of lake trout bag limits, increasing Indiana lake trout limits would probably do very little to change the population at-large. That's because probably 90% of the lake trout harvest by boats launching in Indiana happens out in Michigan waters. We recently changed our bag from 2 to 3, to match Michigan's bag limit. This was done primarily to make compliance with limits easier for everybody, since many folks fish both states in the same day

Any changes from an increased bag limit would probably be felt at a small scale, such as the shore fishery at Burns Harbor or Michigan City for the legacy stocked lake trout, or at the Port via jigging and trolling. But as mentioned by someone earlier, few recreational anglers target lake trout specifically for harvest and it's probably unlikely that changing the Indiana limit would make a large dent in the regional population. Probably not even a huge change to the local level given the lack of interest in harvesting large levels of lake trout, coupled with fairly low angler effort during times when lake trout are concentrated inside Indiana waters
 

Significant progress toward Lake Trout rehabilitation (as measured by the Evaluation Objectives) has occurred at Lake Bluff 10-Mile Reef even though no stocking has occurred at the site and the site is not considered a First or Second Priority site for rehabilitation. This reef represents the third “Non-Priority” site sampled, following North Reef (east of North Point Marina) in 2017 and Wilmette Reef (R4) in 2018. Bathymetric surveys have been conducted by the Illinois Natural History Survey at other reefs along with side-scan sonar surveys (used to classify benthic substrate). These surveys will allow IDNR to plan future fall spawner surveys to investigate rehabilitation at other non-stocked reef locations. Recommendations: Expand the fall spawner survey sampling to other potential Lake Trout spawning reefs in the Illinois waters of Lake Michigan, based on Illinois Natural History Survey mapping project results, while maintaining an annual assessment of the Evaluation Objectives at either Waukegan or Julian’s reef.
Wonder how many other spots are out there like Lake Bluff Reef?

I heard from an old guy who knew a guy - so strictly hear-say - but it sounds plausible: "The Indiana Shoals was once the greatest lake trout spawning area on all of Lake Michigan."  

This guy was a teenager in the 1940s and grew up in Hegewisch (Wolf Lake). One of his playgrounds as a kid was Calumet Park/Harbor and he told me in the fall, when the trout were spawning the Camelick boats (commercial fishers) would come in so loaded with lakers they had only inches of freeboard on their boats.  He showed my a special "permit" he'd been issued which allowed him to access the breakwalls at Calumet Harbor during WWII so he could go there to perch fish. Evidently, the area was considered a security risk from German subs or saboteurs during the war. 
I just wonder if any fall assessments have been done "Over by dare" as they would say on the "south side" for the extent of Lake Trout recruitment happening on the Shoals - either in IN or IL. 
 
On another note, I once talked with a "senior" lady (back when I wasn't a senior) whose father was an ore boat captain during the war. She would ride along a couple times during the summer going from down here to Duluth and back. She remembered going through the locks at Sault Ste. Marie and seeing dozens of blimps tethered around the locks to thwart German air raids and bombing runs from shutting down the locks. I wonder where those planes would have taken off from?  

 

I killed em again today. John are these shad?