View Full Version : Native hung by the Gills?
Gus Orviston
02-17-2003, 10:23 PM
Along the thread of many of the mishandling of natives. I noticed in the Feb-March issue of STS, on page 32, the article of the Muskegon fishery. I was a bit stimmied to see the guy holding what looks like a native steelie by the gills, it's got all of its fins. The article says there are natives in the river as well as hatchery fish, so I got to think there is some sort of obvious marking for hatchery fish. ???
Somebody please tell me it is okay to handle this fish in this fashion...??
Gus
reeldick
02-18-2003, 08:44 AM
Some mid-west states don't mark hatchery fish.
Rueben4life
02-18-2003, 08:51 AM
Theoretically all steelhead in the midwest are hatchery fish. They come from Washington stock, mainly the Sklamania(sp) river. So they are hatchery fish, plus they have thriving stocks of fish. This comes first hand from two noted fisherman from Michigan, one of which has guided for Bud Lilly.
DJFISHS2XS
02-18-2003, 10:25 AM
Rueb is correct, I grew up in michigan, the Stealhead and the salmon are all from washington state, back in the early 60's. Michigan in turn gave washington lake trout or what they call macknaw trout (from mackanaw county the most northen point of the lower *****ula of michigan. The indians do not net the salmon and steelhead nor ar they overfished in the rivers and streams...most fishermen up there are down rigging fans.
The limit for humpys when I lived there was 10 and for kings it was 5...biggest michigan king I ever seen was around 45 pounds.....they eat alewife so bigger spoons are the ticket....thats about all I know
Gus Orviston
02-18-2003, 10:50 AM
That is what I thought originally but then the article goes on to say that there is a spring run of nates and 50K hatchery fish. Are they counting those fish from the 60s as nates? Seems like false advertising :wink:
and I am surprised they wouldn't take the time to mark their hatchery fish, so any scientific data can be properly tracked????
gus
Gus Orviston
02-18-2003, 11:13 AM
I checked on Michigan's DNR website and they indeed only mark a fraction of their hatchery fish, not all .
mmmm, their ways are strange to me and it scares me :tongue:
321mx-r
02-18-2003, 11:51 AM
Hummm...
No Steelhead or Salmon prior to the 1960's.....yet the fish now are "wild".......makes ya wonder just how weak those hatchery fish are.
321mx-r
02-18-2003, 11:55 AM
Just shows how hatcheries can work. I saw the picture in STS....it would not hurt my feelings to have to settle for hatchery fish like that.
Rueben4life
02-18-2003, 01:21 PM
Gus-
If you want a true to life depiction of people that live in 'Northern Michigan' you need to rent the movie, "Escanaba in da` Moonlight" written by Jeff Daniels who also stars in it. They just have a different way of interpreting things out there. It must come from the fact that they only receive 2 months w/o snow.
If you look at it like this it makes a lil more sense. They live in a state that looks like a right hand with a rabbit jumping out of it. People in Michigan can tell others they live here or there by pointing to the location on there right hand. There is a town called Hell and one called Christmas (and yes they leave their lights up and lit all year) and the favorite food, meat wrapped in dough called a Pasty. If all licensed Michigan deer hunters who hunt opening day (Dec 1st) were an army, that army would be 2nd or 3rd largest in the world.
But above all steelhead and salmon fishing is top notch like JigGuy in STS states.
MICHIGAN STEELHEAD HISTORY AND MANAGEMENT
Michigan's Steelhead developed primarily from McCloud River strain in to what we now call Michigan Steelhead. Over the last 120 years, many strains have combined, evolved and contributed to the genetic development of the Michigan or Little manistee strain.
Michigan's Steelhead program began in 1876 with both hatchery and wild fish. Cambell's Creek and McCloud strains from California along with fish from the Klamath River in Oregon were first planted in the AuSable River. The success of the early program resulted in the planting of Steelhead into many tributaries throughout the state.
By 1903 Michigan was planting 800,00 fry that were widely distributed over 50 counties. 1908 saw plantings of over 1 million fish with numbers increasing to 2.5 million by 1911. 1914 planting were reaching nearly 5 million fish much of the stock coming from Michigan's Paris hatchery. These numbers were supplemented by 4 million wild fish from the Pine River.
Michigan's modern Steelhead program began in 1966. Eggs were taken from wild Manistee, Little Manistee and Platte River adults. Since, 1968, the Little Mainstee River has been the primary source Michigan Steelhead eggs. Today it supports annual runs of over 10,000 adults and is maintained entirely by natural reproduction. The facility on the Little Manistee produces over 5 million eggs each year that go to hatcheries in Michigan and other states. Recent creel studies have shown that many fish caught in Michigan waters are wild fish that have evolved and adapted well since the late 1800's. Michigan has come to the forefront of management and preservation of it's great resource in Steelhead.
Great lakes steelhead site. Geared more to the fly fisherman, it has some interesting articles and content Click here. (http://www.steelheadsite.com/)