By Louie Stout

St. Joseph River fish managers will be watching closely to see if three years of experimental coho stocking pays off this fall.

This the third season of migrating coho and it should be telling one. While the previous two falls produced disappointing returns, much of that was due to lower stocking numbers.

That shouldn’t be the case this fall since remaining three year olds from a 60,000 fish stocking will be joining two year-olds from a 90,000-fish plant in the river.

The coho stocking will be evaluated this year and next. If the fish don’t provide a better return, some changes likely will be made in the coming years.

In the meantime, more problems have developed. A disease at the Platte River, Mich. hatchery has shortchanged the 2014 coho stocking by about 50 percent. We were scheduled to get 90,000 from Michigan for the St. Joe but it looks like only 45,000 will get planted.

Lake Michigan biologist Brian Breidert said “Early Mortality Syndrome” (EMS) hit Michigan’s young hatchery coho.

EMS is the result of a thiamin deficiency, which biologists surmise is caused when Lake Michigan fish overeat on alewives, as they did a year ago. While it doesn’t adversely affect the adults, it can cause heavy mortality within their offspring.

“This incident simply sneaked up on everyone,” said Lake Michigan biologist Brian Breidert.

All is not loss for river fishermen, though. To compensate for the missing coho, Indiana will boost its Skamania steelhead stocking, which should provide even better steelheading in the coming years.

In the interim, let’s hope the coho show up in bigger numbers this fall; the ones that do should be above average in size. Breidert said coho caught in Lake Michigan last summer were pretty big and healthy.

“We’re hoping to see a better run,” said Breidert. “It normally starts around Labor Day but things appear to be running behind this year, probably because water temperatures on Lake Michigan have been running pretty warm.”

Last year provided the biggest disappointment, yet Breidert says the poor return may have been the result of weather conditions that caused coho to stray into tributaries before getting to South Bend.

“Also, our fish counts are only those that pass through the South Bend dam ladder, and don’t account for the fish that stop below there,” noted Breidert. “There is a decent fishery downstream of the dam to the state line and those fish don’t get counted.”

Spawning coho aren’t as aggressive as steelhead but more aggressive than kings. They tend to prefer flashy baits, like colorful in-line spinners, but will also take the natural baits. The three-year-old fish will run about 12 pounds.