Scrappy chinook excel at fall runs for spawn migration time

[Spiel]

Scrappy chinook excel at fall runs for spawn migration time

 

 

Trout MCT News Service

October 21, 2009 / chicagotribune.com

 

 

PETOSKEY, Mich. _ The fish jockeyed for position in the run, their every move magnified in the small, clear stream.

 

With thick, green shoulders and sides of tarnished silver, they dodged and weaved like linebackers on a blitz.

 

The call had come from the ultimate coordinator, Mother Nature. It's one these fish _ chinook salmon _ have heeded well for tens of thousands of years.

 

Come late September, time is short for migrating salmon. Time to get upstream, time to spawn, time to die.

 

The urge has not only served the chinook during time: It's allowed them to assume the top predator spot far from their native Pacific Ocean home.

 

It's with good reason the fish is also known as the "king" salmon. In Lake Michigan, the chinook has established itself with a large, naturally reproducing population even as forage fish levels drop and efforts to restore native lake trout are failing.

 

In dozens of tributaries along Michigan's western shore, chinook stage impressive spawning migrations each fall.

 

Here on the banks of the Boyne River, the scene could be from a remote stream in the Pacific Northwest: The gin-clear water flows between evergreen-covered shores and over rounded stones and sand bars. Every couple dozen yards a chinook is visible, fanning out a redd or holding in the current.

 

"It's such a beautiful little river," said Tony Petrella, a fly-fishing guide and writer from Gaylord, Mich. "It holds trout year-round. Then in fall we get this salmon explosion."

 

I fished the Boyne recently with Petrella and P.J. Perea of Edgefield, S.C., to get a sense of the salmon phenomenon on the "other side of the pond."

 

We drifted flies like stone fly nymphs and marabou streamers and egg patterns at the hulking fish.

 

On about my 10th drift in a run with a half-dozen finning salmon, my fly line hesitated. I lifted to immediate and unmoving resistance.

 

The fish then powered upstream and into a logjam; my attempt to turn it resulted in a snapped leader.

 

"That's why it's nice to have a thousand flies," said Petrella.

 

The Boyne is by no means a major Lake Michigan tributary. Its main stem flows for about 20 miles; over much of its length it is no wider than a city street. The water is named after the River Boyne in Ireland.

 

Other Michigan rivers like the Muskegon and Manistee have much larger runs of salmon. But it's arguably more enjoyable to fish a small, clear water river by wading.

 

The Boyne is at the northwestern edge of the "mitten" of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. In terms of latitude, it's across from Washington Island in Door County.

 

It's a world apart as far as the salmon are concerned.

 

A suite of non-native trout and salmon, including chinook and coho salmon, brown and rainbow trout, have been stocked in Lake Michigan annually since the late 1960s.

 

The lake's native top predator_the lake trout_had collapsed by then under deteriorating environmental conditions and mortality related to invasive sea lampreys.

 

The lake trout's demise occurred as numbers of invasive alewife skyrocketed. The small, silver forage fish died-off in the millions each year, fouling beaches from Kenosha to Door County.

 

The non-native trout and salmon were placed in the lake to feed on the alewife and provide a sport fishery. The move has been hailed as one of the most successful in the 20th century Great Lakes fishery management.

 

Not only were alewife reduced to non-nuisance numbers, a thriving charter and sport fishery took hold in harbors around the lake.

 

Despite decades of intensive stocking and millions of dollars in research and management efforts_including ongoing sea lamprey control_by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the lake trout has failed to re-establish a naturally sustaining population in Lake Michigan.

 

The chinook is an entirely different story. Tough, adaptable and aggressive, the fish has become "naturalized" to the lake and now reproduces naturally in impressive numbers.

 

According to data from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, natural reproduction of chinook has continually increased over the last few decades and current estimates suggest naturally-produced smolts account for approximately 50 percent of the annual chinook salmon recruitment in Lake Michigan.

 

Biologists derive such estimates by looking for a chemical marker in the bones of fish that return to rivers to spawn. For tracking purposes, oxytetracycline is added to the water in hatcheries; fish reared in such conditions can be differentiated from wild-spawned fish.

 

For 2007, the numbers look like this: 3.4 million hatchery-raised chinook were stocked in Lake Michigan and an estimated 3.6 million chinook entered the lake via natural reproduction, almost all in Michigan streams.

 

Most tributaries on the Wisconsin side are too warm, too low in oxygen or lack the necessary bottom substrate to allow migrating trout and salmon to naturally reproduce.

 

So although large numbers of chinook, coho, browns and steelhead return to our rivers on spawning migrations, very few smolts result.

 

Here on the Boyne, the spawning is not in vain. Female chinook turned on their sides and shimmied, clearing depressions for eggs. Males hovered nearby, ready to spread milt.

 

In the clear water, the fish often veered away from our offerings. Big, colorful flies tended to elicit and strongest flight response.

 

Small egg patterns resulted in the most hook-ups. It's easy to snag big fish in skinny water; about half of my hook-ups were "foul." Most such fish were on the line only for a brief "rodeo."

 

But over three hours of fishing, I landed four chinook that struck the fly. Chinook are legendary for their power and stamina, and even now, in the last chapter of life, they fought long and hard.

 

Some anglers kept their one allowable daily bag limit. I released mine to the river. In my book, the tenacious survivors had earned the right to finish their journey.