• Home
  • About Us
    • Contact Us
  • Ontario Fishing Adventures
    • Drift Boat Fishing Guides
    • Walk and Wade Fishing
    • Kayak Fishing Ontario >
      • Kayak Fishing Canada
NOMAD FISHING ADVENTURES
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Contact Us
  • Ontario Fishing Adventures
    • Drift Boat Fishing Guides
    • Walk and Wade Fishing
    • Kayak Fishing Ontario >
      • Kayak Fishing Canada

Brown Trout: trolling with camera

3/17/2018

 

A WATERSHED MOMENT | GREAT LAKES AT A CROSSROADS

7/1/2015

 
A Great Lake revival
The demise of alewives and salmon in Lake Huron brought something nobody expected: An explosion of native species. Is Lake Michigan next? And could a more diverse ecosystem offer protection against Asian carp and other invaders?

By Dan Egan of the Journal Sentinel staff
​
Linwood, Mich. — Ernie Plant's eyes get wide when he talks about how spectacular Lake Huron's salmon fishing was back in the late 1980s, when his dad would take him up north on Friday nights after his high school football games.
They'd spend fall weekends along the shore of the lake chasing the chinook that were chasing the alewives that ran so thick they even teemed in water-filled ditches along coastal roadways.

A Watershed Moment
Third of three parts
Published Dec. 7, 2014
  • Sunday: The man with the salmon plan
  • Monday: Salmon crowned king, but its reign is wobbly
  • Tuesday: A Great Lake revival
Previous installments

"We never had a boat," said the sales manager at Frank's Great Outdoors, a gear and bait shop north of Bay City. "But we didn't need one."
When Lake Huron's salmon crashed a decade ago, Plant, who holds a degree in biology from Northern Michigan University, had no doubt the lake would eventually right itself and the fish would come back.
And fish did return — but they weren't the fish Plant or many others expected.
What has happened in the decade since the crash of Lake Huron's two dominant species — invasive Atlantic alewives and the giant Pacific salmon planted to gobble them up — is a remarkable story of nature's resilience. Efforts by lake managers to sustain the invasive alewives to keep the salmon fishing rolling had, for decades, pushed native species to the fringes.
But when the alewife dwindled and the salmon followed, there was an almost instant surge in native lake trout, walleye, smallmouth bass, chubs and emerald shiners.
"It all happened as soon as the alewives were gone," said Michigan Department of Natural Resources biologist Dave Fielder. "The natives started producing like crazy."
The remarkable result is that today the top of the Lake Huron food chain more closely resembles its natural self than anytime since the lamprey and alewives invaded in the mid-1900s.
Jim Johnson
"Lake Huron's fishery," said Jim Johnson, a retired biologist with the Michigan DNR, "is more stable and robust in the past four or five years than it has been in a long time."
It has everything to do with the disappearance of alewives, and little to do with Howard Tanner and Wayne Tody's grand salmon plan, crafted after alewives had over-run Lakes Michigan and Huron. Tanner said he was never interested in trying to bring back native species just because they were native. He wanted the best sport fishery he could fashion from the lakes — and for him that meant Pacific salmon.
And that led to managing the lakes in a manner that would preserve the invasive alewives for the salmon to eat.

Read More

Lake St Clair declining Smallmouth Bass population?

3/21/2015

 
Is there a crisis on Lake St Clair? Reports of declining to non-existent bait fish population including gobies has the Michigan DNR on alert after seeing smallmouth bass starving long after the spawn is over. Watch the short video for their explanations as to why.

We would like to share with you this short (11) minute video, which we produced and presented to each of the Natural Resource Commissioners. It contains our underwater documentation, confirming recent MDNR studies, biologist concerns as well as our Hook n’ Look perspective on the proposed Michigan Bass Regulation changes in regards to Lake St. Clair’s smallmouth bass fishery. Please take time to view it in its entirety.

Posted by Hook n' Look on Thursday, March 19, 2015

Year 2: Lake Huron Atlantic salmon program underway

1/26/2015

 
By Howard Meyerson

              GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Atlantic salmon will again be stocked at four Lake Huron locations in 2014. State officials are gearing up for the second round in a five-year experiment to determine if an Atlantic salmon fishery can be created there.

            Approximately 100,000 yearling Atlantics were planted in the lake during the spring of 2013, but none appeared in the catch so far, according to state fisheries officials.  

            “We expect that all that to start rolling next summer,” said Todd Grischke, the Lake Huron basin coordinator for the Michigan DNR.  “A lot can happen between now and then, but we will be evaluating the harvest each of the next two seasons and weaving that information into a long-term plan of where to go.

            “Next year we are looking at stocking 130,000 yearlings. And, if all goes well, we will look at a 150,000 more in 2015 and stick to the same study design.”

            Atlantic salmon may help fill the fisheries gap that was created in Lake Huron when Chinook salmon population collapsed in 2003 and 2004.  Grischke and others are hopeful that they will fare better being a more opportunistic feeder. Chinook salmon rely on alewives which virtually disappeared. Atlantics are also thought a good compliment to the multi-species fishery that is developing in Lake Huron now.  Walleye, steelhead, perch and some Chinooks are all being caught.

STOCKING TO INCREASE OVER NEXT TWO YEARS

            The 2014 plan calls for increasing Atlantic stocking at each of the four locales that got them this year. The St. Mary’s River will get 50,000 yearlings in 2014, up from 35,000. Alpena/Thunder Bay will get 25,000 instead of 20,000, and the Au Sable River will get 35,000, up from 30,000. Lexington will get 20,000 rather than 15,000.

            “I’m really excited about it,” said Frank Krist, an avid angler from Rogers City and the chairman of the Lake Huron Citizen’s Advisory Committee, a group of anglers convened by the DNR for discussion and review. The group recently reviewed the plan.

             “The fish stocked this (past) spring will be big enough to be caught in the 2014 spring fishery,” Krist said. “And next fall about 30 to 50 percent of those fish will be mature enough to return to the stocking sites to spawn.”


Read More
    Picture

    FISHING NEWS ONTARIO

    Ontario and Great Lakes region salmon, steelhead, and migratory trout fishing articles, information, news, and reports. Stay up to date on our most recent trips, events, tournaments, and general news on adventure fishing and kayak fishing in Ontario and Canada.
    ​- Jeff Wall

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    Archives

    April 2021
    March 2018
    December 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    October 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    August 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    April 2013
    January 2011
    March 2008

    Nomad Blog 2007-2013

    Categories

    All
    Atlantic Salmon
    Baitfish
    Baits
    Belwood Lake
    British Columbia
    Brown Trout
    Canada
    Channel Catfish
    Chinook Salmon
    Coho Salmon
    Cold Water Safety
    Fall Steelhead
    Fishing
    Floatfishing
    Fly Fishing
    Grand River
    Great Lakes
    Help A Child Smile
    Jeff Wall
    Kayak Fishing
    Kids Charity
    Lake Erie
    Lake Huron
    Lake Ontario
    Lake Trout
    Michigan
    Niagara River
    Nomad Adventures
    Northern Pike
    Ontario
    Ontario Kayak Fishing Series
    Paddling
    Reports
    Salmon
    Salmon Crisis
    Saugeen River
    Smallmouth Bass
    Southern Ontario
    Sportsman360TV
    Spring Steelhead
    Steelhead
    Toronto Spring Fishing And Boat Show
    Trout
    Walleye
    Winter Steelhead

    Links

    Columbia PFG
    Coastwatch
    Ontario Steelheaders
    Ontario Kayak Fishing Series
    RAVEN Steelhead Gear
    Salus Marinewear
    Scotty Paddlesports
    SIMMS
    Sportsman360TV
    Werner Paddles

    RSS Feed

©2021 Nomad Adventures
CONTACT US:
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Contact Us
  • Ontario Fishing Adventures
    • Drift Boat Fishing Guides
    • Walk and Wade Fishing
    • Kayak Fishing Ontario >
      • Kayak Fishing Canada