Catching Lake Michigan coho might be harder next year because of a surprisingly low rate of reproduction last fall, but anglers might have more luck with rainbow trout and steelhead.
According to Mike Conlin, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources’ fisheries chief, the department will stock between 125,000 and 150,000 rainbows and steelhead in the spring to help offset “the poor spawning success this fall. We’re trying to make up for this. We’ve got plenty of rainbow eggs.”
Conlin, who has raved about the growth and success of salmon fishing on the lake, said the egg take from salmon in Michigan and Wisconsin, where Illinois gets its eggs for stocking, surprised biologists.
“We don’t know why, but the fish came back smaller,” he said. “They were lower in weight. Smaller fish have fewer eggs. A fatter, larger fish will produce more eggs. The eggs that we didn’t get had a very high mortality rate.”
Illinois normally stocks 300,000 coho but will be able to stock only 200,000-plus this year, Conlin said.
The IDNR plan is to stock enough of the other fish to make up for the reduction in salmon.
“Pound-wise, it will be the same,” Conlin said.
In a recent luncheon speech at the Chicagoland Outdoors Show, Conlin, a 32-year department veteran, said the loss of 25 percent of the department’s work force from an authorized level of 2,160 employees in the last two years, coupled with the recent announcement that Illinois is facing nearly a $5 billion budget deficit, will offer new challenges.
“There’s going to be some tough times,” he said. “There is going to be some tough sledding. But fisheries has always been a can-do division.”
Although Chicago fishermen lament the passing of the abundance of perch in Lake Michigan, and habitat is constantly changing, Conlin strongly believes that anglers have never had it better.
“Fishing’s better today than it’s been in 50 years,” he said. “The good old times are right now.”
The sophistication of fisheries biologists, the development of Illinois’ hatcheries and the proximity of the state’s 90,000 lakes and 26,000 miles of streams, plus “a million acres of lake” (Lake Michigan), all contribute, he said. “We stock 19 species of fish a year,” Conlin said. “By golly, we’re not going to give that up.”
Hit the ice
Henry’s Sports & Bait Shop is sponsoring an ice-fishing tournament Saturday at Belmont Harbor. The recent cold snap has improved conditions for the event. Registration begins at 7 a.m. and fishing is from 8 to 11 a.m.
The early winter warmth was not good for ice fishing–nothing was freezing. Tom Grose, who helps supervise the tournament, said anyone who fishes when ice is only 3 inches thick is crazy.
“Four inches is when you start getting safe,” he said. “At 8 inches you can drive a car on the ice. At 12 inches, it starts becoming a roadway.”
The mercury fell low enough–the teens and below regularly for days–to give ice fishermen optimism for the rest of the winter.
“It looks now as if we’re going to have a good month,” Grose said.
Any fish caught will be eligible for weighing in the tournament, he said. Total weight will decide the adults’ class. The total number of fish caught will decide the kids’ division.
“Perch, trout, any fish they get,” Grose said. “Someone told me he hooked a smelt the other day.”
Switching gears
Sports Afield has postponed its comeback. And now the magazine is planning to redirect its focus in a surprising way.
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Safari Press, the new owner of the general-interest outdoors magazine, which was founded in 1887 but folded in 2002, previously announced that it was bringing back the publication in January 2003. Owners said they hoped to regain much of the 469,000 circulation the magazine had when it went out of business in June by appealing to traditional hunting and fishing audiences.
But now the magazine’s leadership has backed off from the idea.
“We decided it wasn’t workable,” editor Diana Rupp said.
The new plan is to keep the name and reintroduce the magazine in April, but with a new approach.
“We’re changing our focus to primarily big game,” she said. “That’s going to be our niche. It was decided a niche magazine would be a better route to go. We think that it was a niche that was overlooked.”
Going indoors
In a rarity, the Chicago Angling and Casting Club sponsored an indoor national championship recently at the annual Chicago Boat, RV & Outdoor Show. Although the nationals have been conducted 94 times outdoors, most recently in Chicago last summer, this was only the seventh time an indoor event was held.
Steve Rajeff of Battleground, Wash., was the grand all-around champion and champions were crowned in 48 events. Club President John Seroczynski said there will be another indoor championship in January 2004–in Chicago.