Emergency rule marks lake trout changes

As part of a strategy to appease Wisconsin chinook salmon fishermen and reduce predation on the forage base, Lake Michigan anglers will be able to keep more lake trout and fish for the species year-round under a change approved Wednesday by the Natural Resources Board.

The emergency rule raises the daily bag limit to five lake trout and establishes a year-round season in the Wisconsin waters of Lake Michigan.

It represents a deviation from decades of Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources regulations designed to protect lake trout as part of a rehabilitation project led by the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service.

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http://www.jsonline.com/story/sports/columnists/paul-smith/2017/03/01/smith-emergency-rule-marks-lake-trout-changes/98546314/

Thanks bud for the link…

Wow…what a problem to have?? An emergency ruling on Lake Trout harvest, good or bad? In my lifetime this is almost incredible. When I was a child, Lake Trout had been decimated by the invasive lamprey with little if any hope of stopping them. BTW, alewives are also invasive, introduced decades ago. Natural forage was smelt I believe. Thinking that Lake Trout was original to Lake Michigan, not stocked? Ironic now that they are conceding them in favor of King Salmon which most certainly were not native.
Interesting part of the article about potential commercial harvest. I believe they do still have one on Superior as a common menu item in Duluth was fresh Lake Trout! Delicious, and also a magnificent game fish!

I was thinking the same thing. Although, I’ve heard/read that most of the Lake Michigan lake trout are nearly inedible. Possibly due to the forage. The goby and alewife.

biggill wrote:

I was thinking the same thing. Although, I’ve heard/read that most of the Lake Michigan lake trout are nearly inedible. Possibly due to the forage. The goby and alewife.

Hadn’t heard that, interesting though in that they’d be feeding on the same forage as salmon and last I had those they were delicious.
You would know this biggill, what’s the primary forage in Superior?

Goby,alewife s, smelt. Are invasive. Chinook were put in to try to get alewife s under control

Superior is more natural as I’ve seen many many lake trout puking up ciscoes. Although in the spring like right now they gorge on smelt. Smelt are very low fat compared to ciscoes. I’m sure that makes a big difference in the fat content in the lake trout.

I do know that they also eat gobies and eel pout in Lake Superior.

While they do feed on Alewifes,they are not good for Lakers…

Lake

mwal wrote:

Goby,alewife s, smelt. Are invasive. Chinook were put in to try to get alewife s under control

Yes, I forgot smelt were invasive too. Did they stock cohos and brown trout too for the same reason? Do they still maintain a coho stocking program?

biggill wrote:

Superior is more natural as I’ve seen many many lake trout puking up ciscoes. Although in the spring like right now they gorge on smelt. Smelt are very low fat compared to ciscoes. I’m sure that makes a big difference in the fat content in the lake trout.

I do know that they also eat gobies and eel pout in Lake Superior.

I thought about ciscoes and perhaps smaller whitefish?
Gobies…I thought just hugged the bottom. Do lake trout go down and suck them off the bottom? Same with eelpout I suppose?

biggill wrote:

Although, I’ve heard/read that most of the Lake Michigan lake trout are nearly inedible.

Lake Superior has 2 different strains of Lake Trout: redfin and Sissowet. The Sissowet have very yellow meat and are oilier than oily. I only keep redfins.

Are those nasty tasting fish from Lake Michigan redfins or are they the Sissowet variety? Makes a huge difference in table fare even when smoked.

IMHO the nasty Lakers in lake ishigan taste bad from the alewife diet there meat is not the same color as lake superior trout. Even steelhead from Michigan have whiteish colored meat due to a mostly fish diet. Lake superior steelies have orange meat from dining on crustaceans and insects. The bugs etc have creatine in there shells. Redfin s eat cisco es and insects hence the colored meat. Siscowet lakes have very pale meat with fat marbling the meat. They are mainly a fish based diet as they live really deep compared to regular lale trout. 300 ft plus they are rarely caught according to WI DNR person I talked to.

Just wanted to echo a few of the sentiments here already:
1. Lake trout in Lake Michigan don’t taste anywhere near as good as lake superior. They’re OK smoked; I wouldn’t advise cooking them otherwise.

2. 90%+ of Lake Michigan fisherman want to catch silver fish (coho’s, kings, steelhead) than lakers. They eat much better and fight better too.

3. There’s a pretty serious forage concern in Lake Michigan right now. DNR has cut salmon stocking levels as well hoping to avoid a forage crash. While Kings do eat more alwewife’s per year, Laker’s live much longer than kings. A 20 lb king over its’ lifetime eats much fewer alewives than a 20lb laker.

Tom Sawvell wrote:

Lake Superior has 2 different strains of Lake Trout: redfin and Sissowet. The Sissowet have very yellow meat and are oilier than oily. I only keep redfins.

I actually thought it was 3. The 3rd being the stocked strain that was not native to the area. I believe that this strain was the most abundant.

Here’s a pic of a Redfin and one I believe is the more common strain.

Update: after some research I found out that one is a Redfin and one is called an offshore lean. The Redfin is considered a nearshore lean. The third type is the siscowet. I don’t believe I’ve ever caught one.

Really good read. http://www.in-fisherman.com/trout-salmon/lake-trout/great-lake-trout-trends/

Considering that there is no native reproduction in Lake Michigan, why the hell would they do this?

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There is some natural reproduction in Lake Michigan; estimates vary between 10%-20% of the Lake trout population is the result of natural reproduction. Likewise, there is a small percentage of naturally reproducing Chinook, probably less than 3%.

The choice to allow greater harvest of Lake Trout is pretty straightforward, to maximize the more economically lucrative salmon fishery in the face of a crashing alewive forage base.

Whether or nor it will work is uncertain. The ecosystem is pretty complex and the Lakers appear to be more adaptable to evolving forage (e.g. gobies). A good article from a few years ago documenting the changes on Huron that might be coming to fruition on Michigan too.

http://archive.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/A-Great-Lake-revival-b99397836z1-284551621.html

As much as I love catching lake trout and native species, I do support continued development of the salmon fishery in Lake Michigan. Most of our lakes are so different than their original state, it seems fruitless to try and return them to that. Especially when we have very little knowledge of what the original or natural state really is.

I’m hoping this is the year I my first trip out to Lake Michigan to catch some of those famous kings.