Lake Huron Jr. incites skeptics

Blame it on global warming. Or blame the state fisheries biologists. One of them must be at fault.

The entire Midwest is in an uproar over plans to slash Chinook salmon and lake trout stocking in Lake Michigan. Anglers from Evanston to Escanaba are talking the multistate conspiracy to take away their beloved salmon and replace them with boring old lake trout.

They met with the biologists last week in Cleveland. The scientists warned of “Lake Huron Jr.” — the salmon crash that seemed to all but destroy the salmon fishery on our side of the mitten in 2003-04.

Except the destruction didn’t exactly happen. Anglers this spring reported some of the best Lake Huron salmon catches in years.

Likewise, Lake Michigan anglers and charter captains say they are having a great summer. They are questioning why fisheries officials in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin are trying to destroy a very good thing.

The states are taking about a 62 percent cut in salmon stocking for Lake Michigan and a smaller cut in lake trout plants. Fisheries biologists say it is necessary, first, to avoid destroying the forage base, consisting mainly of alewives, in Lake Michigan. When all the alewives disappear, which is what happened in Lake Huron, the salmon population crashes because Chinooks are unable to adapt to other prey.

Secondarily, they say that almost two thirds of the Chinooks in Lake Michigan are born in the wild, so that stocking is both unneeded and adds to the pressure on forage fish.

Lake Huron also has naturally reproducing salmon, which accounts for the rebound that anglers saw this spring.

Lake Michigan anglers saw a different rebound this year, and that may account for much of their skepticism. The biologists say the quantity of prey species in Lake Michigan was at an all-time low during trawl surveys in 2015. The people catching the fish this spring, though, said they’re seeing huge numbers of alewives and that they’re filleting salmon bulging with stomachs full of them.

That’s probably where global warming comes in.

Dan Welsch probably didn’t make any friends when he said, according to the Sheboygan Press, “The phenomenal fishing that anglers are encountering this season is due to last year’s mild winter, which gave us warmer water temperatures, good bait-fish survival and active Lake Michigan trout and salmon.”

Welsch is a Wisconsin charter captain.

Fisheries authorities didn't disagree with him. And maybe they didn’t spot the corollary to his observation. If a mild winter charged up alewife numbers and the Chinook fishery, what exactly was the 2015 trawl survey measuring after a couple of the coldest, Great Lakes freezingest winters ever?

Perhaps the charter skippers are right and it really is too early to panic about a Lake Huron Jr.

With the Great Lakes nearing record temperatures and warmer-than-average weather forecast for the next few months, count on more arguments next year.

Contact Michael Eckert at meckert@gannett.com, (810) 989-6264, on Facebook @michaeleckert or on Twitter @michaeleckert.