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Not sure if my math is correct or if this is the way to look at the fall return on kings. Looks like Michigan rivers are looking at low numbers also and I thought I saw some number like it was just over a half of a percent of the total for returners.
So if Indiana stocks around 225,00 kings, and we follow the same math, then if my number is correct that would mean we had a return of around 1,125 fish? If that number is correct then split that number 3 ways to cover the stocking at Buffington, Portage and City. I think that number is around 375 fish per area. Take that 375 and split it over a 10 day period for returns, looks like approx. 37 1/2 fish per day, per area for 10 days. Again just using some crazy math to try to put things in some perspective. Indiana may have been better or worse then the Michigan numbers, just thought it would be away to look at this in a different way. If the fish ran over a 20 day period then the 37-1/2 number gets split again.

I wonder if Ben Dickinson...a Indiana dnr fisheries employee I believe...May know something...at least on trail. I think they monitor that weir pretty regularly in the fall and may have a decent count. Not sure how many Chinook can jump that contraption, I know coho and steelhead can make it.

Ben Dickinson emailed me after seeing this thread. Will copy and paste the email. Nice to have your biologists involved in these discussions. I know some in Michigan do as well on another site. Thanks Ben.

Ask on thesouthend forum and ye shall receive. Well… sort of. I don’t have Chinook returns for Trail Creek, because beginning last year we fought for and obtained approval to operate the lamprey barrier in a free-pass mode, so salmon can easily bypass the lamprey barrier from September 1 through November 31. While this frees up limited DNR staff to do other important activities, and allows somewhat better access for salmon to quickly bypass the barrier and be available to fishermen upstream, it means we don’t have quite as good of a handle on salmon return numbers.



That said, I think it’s reasonable to assume that the disastrous return of Chinooks this fall is in the 0.5% range. Michigan experienced salmon returns far below average, and all other states have observed the same thing. Coho return is down most places, and the Skamania return was dismal this summer as well.



Indiana stocks 200,000 chinooks, split equally between Buffington Harbor, Little Calumet, and Trail Creek. Half a percent means about 1,000 returning mature kings to spawn. I don’t think the return could be much higher than that, since there have been very few reports of kings being caught in harbors or streams, and very few even observed in the streams.



In the past years, our stream creel estimates that stream anglers catch, on average, 1.25% of the fish that were originally stocked. That doesn’t account for fish caught in the open lake, fish that enter the streams and are never caught, and so forth. I’d estimate that probably 3 to 4% of Chinooks return as mature adult spawners to Indiana tributaries – that’s about what Little Manistee Weir normally sees. So 0.5% versus 4% - that’s 1/8th of the typical return as a percentage. Bottom line: Chinook survival to adult is WAY down in the lake right now. And it’s probably way down for coho and steelhead too.



We’ll know more once results from state creel surveys, state weir operations, USFWS mass marking tag recoveries, and USGS baitfish population reports have the numbers crunched and reports finalized and shared this winter– but right now things are not looking good for baitfish or salmon.



The most disconcerting thing to me is that despite the lack of salmon, they are coming back smaller and skinnier than in the previous years. If the baitfish population remained stable, and the number of salmon declined, the remaining salmon should have more to eat and grow larger and fatter. Instead we’re seeing the opposite, which means that the baitfish population is declining faster than the salmon population. I’ve attached a graph of salmon condition in Lake Huron during the crash there, and then one showing the condition of Chinooks in Lake Michigan the last 3 years (this year’s data is preliminary). Unless we get a really warm winter and good alewife survival this year, and then a bumper crop of alewives next year… well, let’s just hope that is what happens.







Ben D. Dickinson

Assistant Lake Michigan Fisheries Biologist

100 West Water Street, Michigan City, IN 46360

219-874-6824

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Good info - Thanks for posting that Mike.

Can you share the graph?

That e-mail should be mandatory reading for anyone demanding increasing king plants. It's definitely a grim picture out there right now.

First graph is lake huron, second lake michigan. Not sure how the numbers on the left correlate to weight? The jist is smaller fish, and the eerie comparison to lake hurons crash.

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The scariest thing about this is how long is the DNR going to continue having a Lake Michigan program.

If I were just an outsider and didn't like to fish LM and saw the money the DNR is putting into the program, has put into the program and plans to keep putting into the program, at least for now, I'd be having a WTF moment. This is like Obama spending 500 million to train five Syrians to fight and having three of them killed the first day while the other pair ran and hid.

We are spending that amount of money to stock 200K fish and maybe point 05 of them live to maturity? And it's not like .05 is still a lot of fish! It's like close to zero fish. The DNR is cash strapped and this would be an easy call for an Indy bureaucrat. Close the hatcheries, reassign the biologists and scrap the Lake Michigan program until the Feds or other states figure something out.

Bang for a buck? The license fee spenders aren't getting a popcorn fart for a buck.

I'm sure the bureaucrats looking over the figures in IL, MI and WI are reading the same tea-leaves. At some point it's going to be cost expedient to shut down the hatcheries and move on to something that pays.