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Steelhead Anglers- Help us Biologists!

16K views 116 replies 34 participants last post by  M. Tonello 
#1 ·
Hello everyone,
I wanted to remind all of you steelhead anglers that you can help us Biologists out for the next couple of years. You may recall that for the last few years we have been clipping adipose fins on all stocked steelhead in Lake Michigan (the other states are doing it as well). Now we are seeing those clipped fish return, so we're trying to get anglers to report their steelhead catches and inspect the fish for fin clips. All we need is the waterbody, length of the fish, and whether or not the fish was clipped or not. You can also indicate gender, whether you released the fish or not, etc. if you want to. It is easy to do. You can do it on your phone with an app, or you can do it on your computer. Here's the website:https://www.michiganseagrant.org/to...ler-citizen-science/great-lakes-angler-diary/
The short tutorial on there is very helpful if you get confused.

This is a great opportunity for us to get a good picture of the wild (unclipped) vs. stocked (clipped) ratio for our streams. But it will only work if enough anglers are willing to participate in the program. So please help out by catching steelhead, measuring them, checking them for clips, and then entering the data. Thanks!
 
#2 ·
Mark, your take on the steelhead in the post below we caught Friday??? He had all his fins. I have heard stories about salmon and steelhead cross breeding and being genetically identified, but never put much thought in it
 
#7 ·
Mark, is this just for steelhead then? I entered some trips, but only the ones I hooked steelhead. I did enter all species caught for the day, but didn’t enter trips where no steelhead were caught.
 
#8 ·
No you can enter other species as well. I know for the rivers I manage, I'll be interested in seeing that data as well. Probably the east side Biologists will want to see other species as well, for example Atlantic salmon. At the moment, the steelhead clip data is particularly important to get because the feds worked so hard for the past few years to clip all the steelhead. So we need to get that data while those clipped fish are returning.
 
#11 ·
Great to see so much interest in the project!

You can email GLanglerdiary@gmail.com if you run into problems with registration or electronic reporting. Sometimes the registration and data entry provide error messages even though they are working correctly.

As mentioned above, it is important to record all trips that targeted steelhead - even if no steelhead were landed. We are also asking for fin clip, length, and kept/released data on every fish but we realize that it can be tough to get an accurate length if you are wading and fishing alone.

For details and answers to some FAQs see the following article:

https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/new-p...tocked-fish-in-michigan-rivers-msg20-okeefe20

"If you cannot get any measurement on a fish, or if you forget to measure a fish or two over the course of the season, there is another option. When you enter length data you will see a scrolling menu of potential lengths for all types of fish including musky and sturgeon. If you scroll all the way past 80 inches you will see additional categories for <20, 20-28, and >28 inches. You can use these categories to estimate the size of the fish or enter NA if the length was not assessed."
 
#13 ·
Data is great, and interesting to know, however....when was the last time that sportsmen provided data and received an INCREASE in fish stocking? If someone knows if that has ever happened that would be great to know.

It certainly seems that surveys of any kind....baitfish, chinook, etc are done....that is simply a precursor to REDUCED stocking of a species.

Exactly what are we going to do here if we find that lets say 50% of steelhead are wild? I bet a million dollars we receive a huge reduction in steelhead stocking as a result moving forward. Is this what sportsmen want?

I am not going to participate in this...just one guy, but I think steelhead are fine, maybe some more would be nice....certainly not less...and I think this study is leading us down the path of less steelhead being stocked if even we find a small percentage of steelhead are wild. MDNR would save ALOT of money whacking a good portion of the steelhead stocking program out of their budget.

I would like the MDNR to publish the budget savings this year from not having to pay egg take personnel this spring, and costs associated with maintaining all those raceways and holding ponds for 18 months by not having to rear a year class of steelhead...food, electricity, salaries, etc.
 
#17 · (Edited)
Data is great, and interesting to know, however....when was the last time that sportsmen provided data and received an INCREASE in fish stocking? If someone knows if that has ever happened that would be great to know.

It certainly seems that surveys of any kind....baitfish, chinook, etc are done....that is simply a precursor to REDUCED stocking of a species.

Exactly what are we going to do here if we find that lets say 50% of steelhead are wild? I bet a million dollars we receive a huge reduction in steelhead stocking as a result moving forward. Is this what sportsmen want?

I am not going to participate in this...just one guy, but I think steelhead are fine, maybe some more would be nice....certainly not less...and I think this study is leading us down the path of less steelhead being stocked if even we find a small percentage of steelhead are wild. MDNR would save ALOT of money whacking a good portion of the steelhead stocking program out of their budget.

I would like the MDNR to publish the budget savings this year from not having to pay egg take personnel this spring, and costs associated with maintaining all those raceways and holding ponds for 18 months by not having to rear a year class of steelhead...food, electricity, salaries, etc.
This project is being led by Michigan Sea Grant and Michigan State University Extension, with additional funding from Detroit Area Steelheaders. Our goal is simply to take advantage of a great opportunity provided by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's Great Lakes Mass Marking Program. For the first time ever, virtually all stocked steelhead have an easily-identifiable fin clip. This project is just a way for us to help biologists with Michigan DNR and other agencies get more data from anglers on the status of fisheries - and river fisheries in particular.

With steelhead, USFWS is leading efforts to determine lakewide % Wild. Any determination of lakewide stocking rates will depend on models that use natural reproduction rates based on USFWS estimates. This is true for all trout and salmon species, but now that we have mass marking the estimates are getting better - which means better decision-making.

The volunteer project is helping to fill in the gaps by providing a comparison among major river fisheries. We don't know how it will turn out, but we might find that some rivers are more dependent on stocking than we previously thought. Without data collection, we just won't know. Should we assume all rivers are the same? Should we guess where the natural fish are coming from?

It is not just about natural reproduction, either. We can probably all think of rivers that get a decent summer run despite not being stocked with Skamania. We may learn more about straying of summer-runs, and also straying of stocked winter-runs into largely unstocked rivers like the Pere Marquette.

At the end of the day, this is a project run for and by people who love steelhead fishing and want to contribute to a bright future.
 
#14 ·
Don't worry about less stocking if I can report guys, as far as my reports go the rivers are totally devoid of chrome. I've been skunked in 4 steelie trips over ~28 hrs of fishing in the last couple weeks, no bites except for 1 small 11" brown...I Haven't fished NW streams, but SE and SW so far, and I know they have surveys as well at least in SE.

I'm still going again this weekend, twice probably in SW fisheries. Plan to fish a SE fishery on Tues morning before work. Guaranteed skunks (at least for steel).

Can I report my notable lack of success on this topic? LOL.
 
#15 ·
Data is great, and interesting to know, however....when was the last time that sportsmen provided data and received an INCREASE in fish stocking? If someone knows if that has ever happened that would be great to know.

It certainly seems that surveys of any kind....baitfish, chinook, etc are done....that is simply a precursor to REDUCED stocking of a species.

Exactly what are we going to do here if we find that lets say 50% of steelhead are wild? I bet a million dollars we receive a huge reduction in steelhead stocking as a result moving forward. Is this what sportsmen want?

I am not going to participate in this...just one guy, but I think steelhead are fine, maybe some more would be nice....certainly not less...and I think this study is leading us down the path of less steelhead being stocked if even we find a small percentage of steelhead are wild. MDNR would save ALOT of money whacking a good portion of the steelhead stocking program out of their budget.

I would like the MDNR to publish the budget savings this year from not having to pay egg take personnel this spring, and costs associated with maintaining all those raceways and holding ponds for 18 months by not having to rear a year class of steelhead...food, electricity, salaries, etc.
I tend to follow a “truth will set you free” philosophy. We should know the data and then advocate for greater availability of steelhead to more anglers. Versus salmon they are more adaptable to changing food sources, as I understand it, and they are certainly more accessible for greater parts of the year to the typical angler. Certainly more sporting as a river fish as we all know. Really like the browns ideas and conversations as well. Would love to see more of them.

the more people that have a chance to catch a a steelhead in MI, the more push id expect for support of what is arguably the best sport fish that we have in the Great Lakes.
 
#16 ·
Actually few years back mdnr increased steelhead plants. Mostly north big name rivers. I’d like to see those plants closer to home where more people would have better success in their backyard. Especially with the COVID thing, big increases of local guys targeting the resource by me last few years. No ice lots of steelhead fisherman. Research program is an evaluation of what we have and what we shall do moving forward.
 
#30 ·
Although the main branch of the PM is not typically stocked, the Big South Branch does receive roughly 11,000 stocked steelhead each year. In 2018, 2019, and 2020 those stocked steelhead would have been adipose clipped and tagged with CWTs. Most likely, the clipped fish that you were catching in the PM would have been from stocking in the Big South Branch (although strays from other river system are also possible).

For data entry in Great Lakes Angler Diary, we separate the PM into the upper and lower river (above or below Indian Bridge) and include the Big South Branch. I would expect that more stocked fish are caught in the Lower PM and Big South Branch, with fewer stocked fish showing up in the Upper PM catches - but it will be interesting to see.
 
#20 ·
Spoonbill your second paragraph sets a very ominous tone in the aspect of future plants. Please reread what you stated. As written you are saying the feds will eventually control our steelhead plants. I for one have had enough interference from people in far away places calling the shots. 40 plus million Lake Trout the past 20 years is a good place to look in what "THEY" want for "OUR" fishery.

Kisutch

God Bless Dr Howard Tanner

Former Lake Michigan Stakeholder

Lake Michigan Lake Trout Gillnetters Association Join now

Alewife what?
 
#22 ·
I love the idea of this app, and have plenty I could report, but the website only works half the time I try to add an entry, and the app is only for apple products. I would love to see an app rolled out to android users. Surely we don't want to introduce a bias in the data that could come from excluding those who don't use apple products... [emoji12]

Sent from my LG-G710 using Michigan Sportsman mobile app
 
#25 ·
Hi Mark, I recently signed on to the GL Angler's Diary SH program and would like to know, how obvious is a ventral fin clip on a SH? I recently measured a SH landed on the upper Manistee with a clipped adipose fin, and was also missing approximately 2/3rds of it’s first (leading edge) spine on it’s right ventral fin, but the fin was otherwise intact. Was this a hatchery clip or something else, such as an injury? Thanks
 
#26 ·
Streamerheaver- I would definitely count that as a clip. For one thing, we clip the Manistee River Skamania strain steelhead plant with a right ventral clip (in addition to the adipose clip that all the steelhead are getting). No doubt that's what you caught. Ventral fins tend to regenerate a little easier than other fins, which is probably why you're seeing what doesn't look like a complete clip. But when you're dealing with three other states, it can be hard to find a fin that isn't being clipped by someone else for some other study. So a few years back we settled on the right ventral for those Manistee River skamania steelhead because it was all that was available. Hope that helps. Congrats on catching one of the Manistee River Skams!
 
#27 ·
I love the idea of this app, and have plenty I could report, but the website only works half the time I try to add an entry, and the app is only for apple products. I would love to see an app rolled out to android users. Surely we don't want to introduce a bias in the data that could come from excluding those who don't use apple products... [emoji12]

Sent from my LG-G710 using Michigan Sportsman mobile app
bborrow- I've been entering my catches online and haven't had any trouble with the website working. That said, I haven't had as many catches as I'd like so maybe I'm not on there as much as you!
 
#29 ·
Spoonbill your second paragraph sets a very ominous tone in the aspect of future plants. Please reread what you stated. As written you are saying the feds will eventually control our steelhead plants. I for one have had enough interference from people in far away places calling the shots. 40 plus million Lake Trout the past 20 years is a good place to look in what "THEY" want for "OUR" fish
Seems like you're finding your own bias in the paragraph. Federal govt has been providing data to Great Lakes managers for decades and has never played a part in Steelhead stocking decisions. Mass marking studies, prey fish assessments, lamprey control, etc all provided by federal agencies. I agree they have pushed the "native" agenda to the detriment of sport fisherman but other than that they are a huge help. I haven't caught a single wild spawned steelhead in my preferred river yet this year. Hopefully that equates to continued stocking levels or even increases in the future
 
#31 ·
Hi Mark, I have another question for you regarding the GL Anglers SH program. I am essentially a catch-and-release angler but often times the buddies I fish with like to keep a fish or two for the table. Our practice has been to harvest only male SH, regardless of whether they are wild or hatchery fish. My question to you is, should we continue this practice or perhaps we should harvest only hatchery fish, regardless of sex, and return all wild SH. What to you recommend?
 
#32 ·
Streamerheaver- I leave that decision up to the angler. I don't like to be critical of anyone's harvest decisions, as long as they are legal. Obviously from a legal standpoint, there's no problem with harvesting wild females. From a biological standpoint, our rivers continue to produce lots of smolts, so we don't believe that number of females dropping eggs in the spring is the limiting factor. We believe the reason for the smaller steelhead runs in the past few years lies more with issues in the big lake than in the rivers themselves. For me personally, if given the choice when harvesting a steelhead for the table (and I do occasionally) I would prefer a hatchery male. But that wouldn't preclude me from keeping a hen if no males were biting that day. Also, I am a spawn fisherman, so I'll keep an occasional hen and even an occasional wild hen if I need bait. It also might depend on the river. Certain rivers are not stocked so I might be less apt to take a wild hen from those rivers.
 
#34 ·
Is it possible the fish are not surviving out in the lake? I’d be curious to hear your educated opinion on the smaller runs. I have not been real sure what to attribute it to. All I know is I catch a lot less fish now. I used to rarely go 3 trips to surf or pier with no fish. Now I often will go up to 6 trips with no fish. As in no bites, no nothing... But when I do get fish it’s been a good mix bigger ones with a fair amount of skippers/young stockers. And it’s multiple fish. Up to 5 fish per half day during the good trips And they seem well fed as far as I can discern.

Please feel free to PM me if you prefer.

Thanks!
 
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