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Post by littlesnapper on Dec 9, 2014 1:53:32 GMT -5
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Post by muskymike275 on Dec 9, 2014 7:38:35 GMT -5
This was a good read, I sure hope they find a balance to it all.
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Post by smokeonthewater on Dec 10, 2014 21:20:18 GMT -5
Very interesting and agree with most. But if you dissect Green Bay out of Lake Michigan, Green Bay continues to have large alewife populations, record perch spawning (none reaching the first year)and very poor trout and salmon returns. The common denominator with the demise of all these areas are walleye. Lake Erie experienced a similar collapse and they also have an abundance of walleyes. Those guys in Milwaukee fighting walleye stocking are IMO doing what they need to if they want to keep those brown trout. Once stocked they will take over and eat stocked fingerlings and the stocked fish never live through the first week or two. I have fished Green Bay around Marinette/Peshtigo since I was 10 years old (almost 40 years now) and have seen the entire rise and collapse of a trout and salmon in this area. What I have experienced, is that walleyes are great table fare but I would rather sit through a opera then fish for them. IMO some people want the natives back and this may be a good thing, but I will take screaming drags, decent eating and a lot more fun all around then dragging in mudchickens.
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Scrapper
Full Member
Calm seas are just daydreams.
Posts: 976
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Post by Scrapper on Dec 10, 2014 22:19:11 GMT -5
Smoke, I will have to agree with you on the walleye on the bay. I used to catch coho in the bay in June and if I had figured it out sooner, there would have been a good possibility they might have been late April to May fish.
There is a good reason for this though and it is not because I don't like walleye, it is sometimes they taste like mud in the lower bay.
p.s. Also first and foremost I am a trout and salmon fisherman. That is the fish I cut my teeth on.
44 years on the bay and Lake Michigan
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Post by saugeye on Dec 11, 2014 11:27:48 GMT -5
Reading through the articles, it sounds like what I have been hearing for the last 25 years. Concerned? Sure. But not the 1st time I have heard the imminent collapse of the Great Lakes.
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BFG
Full Member
Posts: 665
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Post by BFG on Dec 11, 2014 16:09:10 GMT -5
I don't think we can stick our heads in the sand for any longer....2014 proved that something is definitely wrong out there. There is a really good thread on TheMichiganSportsman.com that details the rise and stabilization of zebra mussels, which was soon followed by the quagga mussel. You can see the density charts and as the zebra has declined, the quagga have expanded. The quagga are the true enemy of the lakes....
Call it doom and gloom all you want but I used to hear screaming drags when fishing Lake Huron in the 90's and now...it is a laker and walleye fishery for the most part. IMO, Lake Michigan has hung on longer b/c there are more nutrients (see: sewage) that get dumped into LM than Lake Huron (less population around the lake) so there has been more available food on which the phytoplankton to feed.
Green Bay is perfect habitat for walleyes...fertile, shallow, warms quick...just like Lake Erie. It could be that Lake Michigan will return to a lake trout fishery (they stock the hell out of them) with the occasional salmon mixed in. Salmon used to be caught in Saginaw Bay as well, but now it's all walleyes and perch.
If a few guys have a tough year in one part of the lake, it is an anomaly. When the majority of the lake has crappy fishing for an entire season (and yeah...we have had cold winters before last year)...something is up. The mirror imaging between both lakes (and their bays) is strikingly similar.
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Post by saugeye on Dec 11, 2014 19:23:50 GMT -5
I never mentioned sticking ones head in the sand. The doom and gloom has been going on since the spiny water fleas showed up. All we can do is trust the biologists are using the best management tools at their disposal.
Everything in nature has a control. What keeps the mussels in check in their native environment?
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Post by salty on Dec 13, 2014 9:39:58 GMT -5
I used to catch coho in the bay in June and if I had figured it out sooner I got first salmon ( coho ) on the bay in 1967 trolling in little harbor above sturgeon bay while trolling for lake trout - limit was five lakers then. Mid to late 70's and into the 80's catching big brookies ( nipigon) along cave point and 30-40and 50 catch days of small mouth fishing geneos reef when the water was so full of algae as so as you dropped in your rapala you couldn't see it. I remember the day off of kewaunee I could see the fluorescent red downriggers ball 14 feet down , now you can see flashers down 60'. Nature will all even itself out - with the clearer water the weeds will come back giving the perch somewhere to hide so they can grow and the gobys are feeding the walleyes and the whitefish |
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BlackOut
Full Member
BIRD IS THE WORD
Posts: 1,287
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Post by BlackOut on Dec 13, 2014 17:46:47 GMT -5
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