Stocking and Tagging Presention-tonight!!!!!

[crappiehunter]

Don't Miss the Friends of Fishing meeting next Thursday!  

Assistant Lake Michigan Fisheries DNR Biologist, Mr. Ben Dickinson, is presenting the topic of Tagging and Stocking. His presentation will occur at our upcoming meeting this Thursday, April 2, 2015, at 6PM.  We have moved our meetings to the Valparaiso Public Library, Room A,  103 Jefferson Street. The cost is FREE, and questions are encouraged!

It's tonight!!!!

[MC_angler]

thanks Mike!

to be more specific, the stocking part of the presentation will be talking about changes to the steelhead and coho stocking changes on Indiana tribs (St Joe, Trail/Salt/Little Cal) and the tagging part will be showing some results from the federally-coordinated Mass Marking Program for Lake Michigan chinook salmon

[crappiehunter]

Awesome!!

Do not forget to bring your raffle tickets and money to the meeting. Thursday is the drawing for the charter!!!

This raffle for the charter for Felix's family. Here are the details, contact High Flags if you want a ticket. We will pull the winner this Thursday.

http://www.iceshanty.com/ice_fishing/index.php?topic=307919.0t

[northrn-duck-assassin]

Can some of the information maybe get posted in here after the fact, for those of us interested that cant make it? Just anything by memory, not asking for a full length detailed report.

I also heard that stocking numbers are getting reduced greatly?! 

[MC_angler]

Here you go NDA -

http://www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/files/fw-lake_michigan_stocking_changes.pdf

[northrn-duck-assassin]

Thanks for the link!

[crappiehunter]

Gonna be a fun meeting! Don't miss it!

[Get_the_Net]

It sounds like the plan for the St. Joe is to replace a bunch of steelhead with coho.  Coho tend to be much smaller than SH, so not sure this is a good thing for those fishing the south bend / mishawaka areas of the river.  Stocking the same number of coho but with 2/3 as yearlings instead of fingerlings will increase the number of coho returning. 

Let's do some math here.
1.  They claim the larger 8.5" fish will return at a 5% rate and claim the 7" yearlings are returning at 2%.  Their own chart shows no 7" fish returning at 2%, so not sure where they get that number from.
2.  In 2014 it looks like IN stocked ~300K steehead (84K skamania fingerlings, 137K skamania yearlings and 80K yearling Michigan strain SH).  Using the 1% return on fingerlings, and 2% on yearlings at the below 8.1" size, that would be an expected return of 840+2730+1600 for a total return of 4170 steelhead annually, yet there have been years with much larger returns pas the SB ladder.
3.  So at current stocking rates, the return was expected to be 4170 SH + 1800 Coho
4.  Proposed stocking rates, will be 175,000 Yearling SH returning 8750 SH (5%) + 90K Coho returning 3300 Coho returning  (60k*5% + 30k*1%)

So they want us to believe based on their numbers in the doc linked above that these changes will yield ~12050 returning fish vs. current returns of ~6000 fish.  I am not 'buying' their 'suggested' numbers based on their graph.   At 7.8" a SH returns between 2 and 3% per their chart, yet we are supposed to think a 7/10th of an inch increase in size will cause an increase of a full 4 to 5% over what we get today?  There are no data points to support that, just an avg curve based off data points from smaller fish.  They admit it will take 3-5 years to know for sure, and use a lot of 'could' and 'suggest' in their lingo, but in the meantime I think the St Joe is getting the short end of the stick on SH stockings with the proposed cuts or reshuffling. 

I don't fish for them enough to care one way or the other, but it seems they could have kept the current stocking numbers as is and increased the sizes to see if actually yields the returns the chart 'suggests'

[MC_angler]

The plan is definitely to increase the coho numbers, but also increase skamania returns by growing them larger.

A couple things to consider - unfortunately, the number of fish can't be kept the same while also growing them larger. Hatchery space is at capacity - it can only produce a fixed poundage of fish, regardless of the number. If too many fish are crammed in a hatchery pond, they start dying, there are disease issues, their growth is stunted, etc. So if the fish get bigger (heavier) you must decrease the number of fish. It'd be great to just keep the number of fish the same AND grow them way bigger, but it's not possible.

Secondly, keep in mind the document is only talking about skamania steelhead and coho. It leaves winter runs out of the conversation entirely, since their maturation schedule and % return is different than skamanias. So it's not really claiming that the return is 6000 for the year (it's not), it's saying the goal is 5000 for the fall, which is not being met, and that with these changes it should be between 5000 and 6500 fall fish. There are definitely years when the run is larger, because environmental conditions like stream temp and flow influence the run, in addition to the stocking size factors. Which is part of why it takes so long to evaluate stocking changes, because you wouldn't want to draw an erroneous conclusion based on one data point, if that year happened to be a really hot, dry year when the skamanias didn't run, or a cold, wet summer in which they came back in large numbers. Not to mention that the fish need at least 2-3 years in the lake to grow and mature before coming back as adults, so there's a 2-3 year lag period

Also the 2% number is not the rate of return of 7 inch fish, but rather the recent average skamania return (of yearlings) from the past few years. You're entirely right that there are no data points to prove that fish stocked at 8+ inches will return at 5% or more - but there's data from other research done by Michigan that found rates higher than that for fish stocked between 8 and 9 inches. The point of evaluating the return for 3-5 years is that there *will* be data points to evaluate, which will be a great thing! Since the goal of 5,000 fall fish has not been consistently met for some time, I think it's better to try something new rather than keep on doing the same thing and expecting things to suddenly improve.\


There's definitely a lot of "could" and "suggest" because scientists don't really deal in absolutes, and acknowledge the immense environmental complexity associated with a body of water as large as the St. Joe River and Lake Michigan. Just as a weatherman wouldn't give you an ironclad prediction for the exact temperature on a date one year from now, but could give you an expected range of temperatures - a fish biologist isn't going to guarantee you the exact number of fish that will come back in a few years, but can provide a reasonable estimate

[crappiehunter]

Great meeting Ben thanks for coming and sharing....

[Be pro]

Mc angler do u belive the fish that they release in the joe return to the joe or the fish in trail return to trail iam a big steel head and salmon fishermen and have always wondered what Sumone like u thought on that

[Be pro]

Like sum years the king run is horrible here but good on the upper Michigan rivers and then the next year the run is awesome here and sucks up there I have always believed if water temps stay cooler in southern Lake Michigan then the Kings have a great run here but hot temps push them north to deeper water and then they follow there kings in to there rivers

[Get_the_Net]

The plan is definitely to increase the coho numbers, but also increase skamania returns by growing them larger.

A couple things to consider - unfortunately, the number of fish can't be kept the same while also growing them larger. Hatchery space is at capacity - it can only produce a fixed poundage of fish, regardless of the number. If too many fish are crammed in a hatchery pond, they start dying, there are disease issues, their growth is stunted, etc. So if the fish get bigger (heavier) you must decrease the number of fish. It'd be great to just keep the number of fish the same AND grow them way bigger, but it's not possible.

Secondly, keep in mind the document is only talking about skamania steelhead and coho. It leaves winter runs out of the conversation entirely, since their maturation schedule and % return is different than skamanias. So it's not really claiming that the return is 6000 for the year (it's not), it's saying the goal is 5000 for the fall, which is not being met, and that with these changes it should be between 5000 and 6500 fall fish. There are definitely years when the run is larger, because environmental conditions like stream temp and flow influence the run, in addition to the stocking size factors. Which is part of why it takes so long to evaluate stocking changes, because you wouldn't want to draw an erroneous conclusion based on one data point, if that year happened to be a really hot, dry year when the skamanias didn't run, or a cold, wet summer in which they came back in large numbers. Not to mention that the fish need at least 2-3 years in the lake to grow and mature before coming back as adults, so there's a 2-3 year lag period

Also the 2% number is not the rate of return of 7 inch fish, but rather the recent average skamania return (of yearlings) from the past few years. You're entirely right that there are no data points to prove that fish stocked at 8+ inches will return at 5% or more - but there's data from other research done by Michigan that found rates higher than that for fish stocked between 8 and 9 inches. The point of evaluating the return for 3-5 years is that there *will* be data points to evaluate, which will be a great thing! Since the goal of 5,000 fall fish has not been consistently met for some time, I think it's better to try something new rather than keep on doing the same thing and expecting things to suddenly improve.\


There's definitely a lot of "could" and "suggest" because scientists don't really deal in absolutes, and acknowledge the immense environmental complexity associated with a body of water as large as the St. Joe River and Lake Michigan. Just as a weatherman wouldn't give you an ironclad prediction for the exact temperature on a date one year from now, but could give you an expected range of temperatures - a fish biologist isn't going to guarantee you the exact number of fish that will come back in a few years, but can provide a reasonable estimate

Good points.  I would look at resolving the hatchery space being maxed out as that is not going to change until they address it somehow.  I would question why the continue to spend money stocking fingerling at all.  Yes, it being 'forced' by the hatchery space issue, but it is a waste of money for a 1% return.  Maybe save that money, raise the trout/salmon stamp a few dollars and build another hatchery or expand space at existing ones that allows them to grow every thing to yearling size if the return is an estimated 4-6% better ROI.    Most of these guys that target trout/salmon spend 5-8 bucks on a single lure or spend hundreds on fly rods,, thousands on boats, etc., and increasing the trout/salmon stamp by 10 bucks a year would generate some quick cash that could go directly back into improving the fishery with a new or larger facility.

[MC_angler]

Mc angler do u belive the fish that they release in the joe return to the joe or the fish in trail return to trail iam a big steel head and salmon fishermen and have always wondered what Sumone like u thought on that

In general trout and salmon reliably return to the river where they are stocked. The chinook tagging study currently being performed lakewide shows that most of the chinook recovered from Trail Creek during their spawning run were in fact stocked in Trail.

There is some low amount of straying, because it is a natural life history trait of migratory salmonids. Straying rates are usually 5-10% of the population or so, but it varies.

[Be pro]

Thanks for the info