Fishing Report

Salmon and Perch starting to show up in Saugatuck (May-13-2013)

At last we are getting reports of Coho and Chinook salmon being caught from South Haven to north of Saugatuck. We caught chinook in 100 to 110 foot of water last Monday 35 and 45 foot down. The Coho were caught a little deeper in 120 to 140 foot of water on 150 and 200 foot of copper with small blue and blue/green stingers. The dipsys with blue wiggle Pro Troll and blue bubble Rapture fly also produced at 100 foot dialed at 2.

Last Monday also produced some nice perch catches in 65 and 70 foot off the ball in Saugtuck. The fishing was spotty and on Tuesday they had disappeared. These are the spawners that we find in the 65 foot range and they will move from day to day. However it is a start and maybe our perch fishing will produce better fishing results than last year.

If you want more infomation about the fishing or would like to make charter reservations, email me at captron@chartermichigan.com.

Shake Down Trip (Apr-29-2013)

The weather finally started to warm up and the wind calmed down and we did the shake down cruise this weekend. We started in 20 foot of water and trolled out to 70 foot with out a bite. I believed that there had to be some Brown Trout in the shallow water off the rocks on the Douglas point, so we angled back in toward shallower water. When we hit 55 foot of water we caught a 15 pound lake trout and then hit another lake trout in 52 foot and a third in 51 foot. We lost a couple more lake trout and returned 2 lake trout we did not want. After about 4 hours and trolling into 10 foot of water, we called it quits with out having a silver fish or brown trout on. If we had stayed in that 50 to 55 foot of water I am sure we could have limited out on the trout.

Flat lines and 3 color lead core with silver blue stick baits each had some hits with the down rigger at 35 foot with a silver blue/green UV stinger getting 4 or 5 hits and only producing 1 fish. We also had the dipsy diver with a silver blue stick bait go twice at 45 feet.

We did not mark any bait so that may explain why the silver fish are not in yet, but if there are golbies in the rocks I would expect to get some browns out of that area. Check back and I will start posting the fishing report each Monday starting the early part or the middle part of May. For more information or for charter reservations contact me at captron@chartermichigan.com.

Possibly some good news concerning the Lamprey (Apr-04-2013)

Since the late 1800's the lamprey has wrecked havoc on the Great Lakes, however researchers who are doing genetic mapping of the sea lamprey to control the invader say their work could improve human health.

The sea lamprey spends 4 years as a larvae in the soft bottom of lakes and streams and at this time they do not have the parasitic sucking mouth and teeth that allows them to feed on the blood of the host. Researchers are looking at the genes to see if they can control the genes that transform the lamprey from larvae to parasite and thus keeping it in the larva form. If you can control the genes you can control the life cycle.

Research may also include a cure for biliary atresia in which infants are born with out a bile duct that will cause liver failure and death. Sea lamprey, when the transform from larvae to adult forms lose the bile duct, however there intestines start producing the bile salts needed in digestion. Finding the genes that control this could produce a cure in humans.

In addition, researchers are looking at nerve regeneration in lampreys. Lampreys lack the myelin sheath that covers the nerve and this sheath is what prevents regeneration of the nerve. The genes that produce the myelin were found in the genome of the lamprey, however they are not expressed. Finding a way to "turn off": these myelin producing genes in humans could mean that cells that were damaged in the spinal cord or brain could regenerate and used to repair spinal cord injuries and some neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Vertebrates, like the lamprey, grow a bridge around the injured site. In humans, the system forms a block at the injury which produces some thing like scar tissue. Researchers are working to find out why the result is different even though the genes are the same.

2013 Spring Fishing Season Report (Apr-04-2013)

Persisting winter weather and strong winds have delayed and slowed the spring season. The boat is ready for launch, but is still in storage until the weather breaks. In addition, the low water level will cause some problems, since most of the slips need to be dredged. Not only can most of the boats not get into the slips, many can not get to the slip and some not ever to the marina. There are some trailerable boats fishing already, however the catching has been slow and the conditions cold with 34 degree water and 15 to 20 mph winds. When the weather breaks and the water and air warms some what, the fishing will improve and I will post an update.

Information that tags on Chinook Salmon give. (Dec-23-2012)

Reprinted from Inland Sea Anglar, Great Lakes Fishing Report by Dan Thomas

STURGEON BAY, Wis. – Stainless steel tags smaller than a pencil lead and the "Dr. Seussian" machine that can implant them in 8,000 fish per hour are unlocking the secrets of Chinook in Lake Michigan, the biggest predator in the big pond.

Loaded with information about where and when each fish was hatched, the tags are already showing that Chinook caught by anglers in Wisconsin waters of Lake Michigan were just as likely to come from Michigan as from Wisconsin.

Wisconsin DNR and USFWS biologists recovered hundreds of coded wire tags from angler-caught Chinook from Wisconsin ports during the summer of 2012. “Our preliminary analysis indicates that about 41 percent of these stocked and tagged Chinook originated from Wisconsin stocking sites and 34% originated from Michigan DNR stocking sites on Lake Michigan,” says to Nick Legler, the lead DNR fisheries biologist working on the project.

“Another 9% originated from Michigan DNR’s Lake Huron stocking sites, 11% originated from Illinois, and 5% originated from Indiana,” Legler says. “These tag returns will give us a much better understanding of how much of that mixing is occurring.” Legler cautions that it’s important to remember that the information biologists have so far is based on a few years’ tag returns. “We expect much better information once we have four to five year-classes tagged and those returns analyzed.”

Importantly, the tags will also eventually help better document just how many fish are naturally reproduced and how many come from hatcheries. That’s a key question because in the 1960s, when Wisconsin and other states first began stocking Chinook to control alewives, an exotic fish, 100 percent of the Chinook caught in the lake by anglers were from hatcheries, Legler says.

In more recent decades, natural reproduction has come on strong in Michigan tributaries and a study started in 2006 and continuing in 2012 suggests that on average 55 percent of the 1-year-old fish in the lake were naturally reproduced. More of these tag returns and the information they provide are expected in coming years because the tagging machines, brought to Lake Michigan hatcheries by the FWS starting a few years ago, will continue to mark all hatchery-raised Chinook salmon. Those fish are now becoming big enough where they can be caught by anglers or are making their spawning runs up the tributaries where DNR biologists collect eggs.

Legler says that tags from Chinook making their spawning runs up Lake Michigan streams will enable DNR and partners to know whether most of the fish stocked in Wisconsin return to the water in which they were stocked, or whether they stray from that site. This winter, DNR and USFWS biologists also will be analyzing tag returns in Chinook processed at DNR’s Strawberry Creek egg collecting facility. More than 800 Chinook heads were collected for analysis at that facility, as well as at DNR egg collection facilities in Kewaunee and Racine.

“The tags that we collect from our spawning facilities during the fall will allow us to learn more about straying rates,” Legler says. “They also can allow us to determine the exact age of a marked fish, and we can then compare each fish’s age to its weight to evaluate growth rates, ecosystem predator-prey balance, etc.” In the future, Legler expects DNR will ask anglers who harvest Chinook in the fall during the salmon runs on the tributaries to donate Chinook heads to DNR for analysis of the tags in the fish.

“By collecting heads from anglers during the fall, we hope that we’ll be able to acquire data that will help us to determine when and where mature salmon begin staging, before the fall spawning event.”