By Louie Stout

When Lake Michigan fish managers decided to cut king salmon stockings a few years ago, it didn’t set well with a lot of trollers.

Who could blame them? There are a lot of cool fish stocked in Lake Michigan, but none gets bigger or puts up a better fight than kings.

But those big salmon are eating machines, and with the alewife population diminishing – coupled with evidence that the kings were reproducing naturally - fish scientists felt it was necessary to cut back on stocking numbers.

Well, if you look at what’s happened on the lake since the cutbacks, that decision may have been the right one.

Alewife numbers are showing modest improvements, the lake is producing 20-pound-plus kings again and coho and steelhead have flourished.

The fall and spring runs up St. Joseph River have benefited as a result.

From 2008 to 2016, the number of steelhead passing through the South Bend ladder from January through May was around 5,300. The last three years has averaged closer to 10,000. Last season’s run (9,964) ranked fourth all-time.

Now, some of that increase is attributable to additional stocking of winter-run steelhead to complement the usual summer-run (Skamania) stockings.

But not to the extent of what we’re seeing now.

“There is no question in my mind that king cuts have allowed the forage base to rebound and other fish have benefited,” said Indiana Lake Michigan Biologist Ben Dickinson. “The coho are big and fat, an indication they are finding enough to eat and are surviving well.”

Dickinson said there have been record numbers of coho returning to the St. Joe in the fall, which is partially attributable to hatchery fish going in during the spring – when they are bigger – than the smaller fall fish when they historically have been stocked.

“There are so many predators (bass, walleye, pike and catfish) in the river that we believed some of the (smaller) fall fingerlings we were stocking were getting eaten before they moved to the big lake,” he added. “The larger, spring fish spend less time in the river before running out to Lake Michigan. That has helped, but those fish are surviving in the lake better, too.”

Summer run is on

Dickinson also said summer-run steelhead are beginning to show up in southern Lake Michigan tributaries.

Some 200 have passed through the South Bend ladder on the St. Joe and fish managers have been collecting them at the Michigan City Trail Creek weir.

“The steelhead we’re seeing this summer are very fat and healthy, another good sign that things are working,” said Dickinson.