MILWAUKEE (WSAU) — The fall chinook salmon spawning run is completed on Lake Michigan and Wisconsin officials say state fish hatcheries were successful enough this year to help support neighboring states.
Department of Natural Resources northern Lake Michigan fisheries supervisor Dave Boyarski says the early rains in the spring and summer helped the salmon in the lake, but the late salmon run hurt locations outside of Wisconsin. “We had relatively low water in many of our tributaries and the water was flowing warm going into late September and early October, and I think both of those factors played into this overall salmon run this year.” Despite the poor run, the Strawberry Creek Chinook Facility in Sturgeon Bay was able to surpass their goal for egg collection for the fall.
Those surplus eggs will be heading out to support the fisheries in Illinois and Indiana which had poorer years. “We like to help out our neighbor states and produce our great fisheries for everyone around the Lake and that’s what we’re doing right now.” Boyarski says officials were expecting a decrease in this year’s spawning returns because stocking levels were reduced in 2013 in order to help keep the population stable.
Boyarski says Lake Michigan has been seeing a decent rebound in how many of the lake’s salmon are supported naturally. “There is some substantial natural reproduction out there, some of the estimates have been at 50% or so. I would not say at this point they are quite self sustaining quite yet, because the rest of that percentage is still supported by stocking.” Wisconsin is set to stock 810,000 salmon into the lake next year.
