new board!

[tincanary]

Tincanary,

Don't leave out smallmouth and walleye.  Do sportsfishermen target whitefish in the lakes?

Whitefish aren't targeted much by recreational fishermen much due to the difficulty pursuing them on the big water, but they are heavily targeted by commercial fishermen.  They can't be caught from shore too often and the areas of the Great Lakes where they are found can be too much for a more standard sized boat.  I catch them off of the boardwalk in Port Huron during late fall, excellent eating.  The chicken of the Great Lakes.  If you're ever in the UP, just about every restaurant has it on the menu.  They're amazing deep fried, baked, broiled, any way you can imagine.

[tincanary]

Another fish I love is the white bass, they run the Detroit River in the millions come May.  The hardcore walleye guys hate them because they're bait thieves, but one of my favorites to catch just because the action is so intense.  It isn't out of the ordinary to have 100+ fish days.

[Keta]

White bass fight hard and are tasty.

We have mountain whitefish that are mostly ignored or tossed on the bank as trash fish.  Our lakes are much smaller and they can be targeted.  They are also in many of our cold/cool water clear streams.

[Gobi King]

White bass is yum
We get a few on the west side too

[Gfish]

Surprised to hear about the Atlantic Salmon.
My Aunt and Uncle brought us from St. Paul up to Duluth once when I was a kid. Lake Superior did indeed look like the ocean. We stopped at a resort next to a stream somewhere and I hiked up a stream and started getting Browns on a small spinner. What a pleasant surprise! Just like a Nor-Cal experience, but better fishing and no competition. We had a smoked Whitefish picnic on the way back, great stuff.

[tincanary]

Surprised to hear about the Atlantic Salmon.
My Aunt and Uncle brought us from St. Paul up to Duluth once when I was a kid. Lake Superior did indeed look like the ocean. We stopped at a resort next to a stream somewhere and I hiked up a stream and started getting Browns on a small spinner. What a pleasant surprise! Just like a Nor-Cal experience, but better fishing and no competition. We had a smoked Whitefish picnic on the way back, great stuff.

Atlantic salmon used to be native to the Great Lakes but were extirpated in the late 1800s due to commercial fishing.  Lake Ontario was the primary lake they were found but populations also existed in Erie and Huron.
 They were landlocked and didn't migrate out to the Atlantic Ocean.  LSSU (Lake Superior State Univ.) has a program where they pull the eggs from the St. Mary's River and hatch them, then release into the wild.  Smolt sized fish are released in the Au Sable River, St. Mary's River, and Lake Huron in the thumb region of Michigan.  The Atlantics don't get massive like the oceangoing fish, but get in the 10-15lb range like the steelhead here.  As far as I know, the only natural reproduction occurring is in the St. Mary's River.  The fish can't pass the Foote Dam on the Au Sable River in order to get to the colder headwater creeks. 

[Reeltyme]

Atlantic salmon used to be native to the Great Lakes but were extirpated in the late 1800s due to commercial fishing.  Lake Ontario was the primary lake they were found but populations also existed in Erie and Huron.
 They were landlocked and didn't migrate out to the Atlantic Ocean.  LSSU (Lake Superior State Univ.) has a program where they pull the eggs from the St. Mary's River and hatch them, then release into the wild.  Smolt sized fish are released in the Au Sable River, St. Mary's River, and Lake Huron in the thumb region of Michigan.  The Atlantics don't get massive like the oceangoing fish, but get in the 10-15lb range like the steelhead here.  As far as I know, the only natural reproduction occurring is in the St. Mary's River.  The fish can't pass the Foote Dam on the Au Sable River in order to get to the colder headwater creeks. 
[/quote]

There is a very similar process in Pulaski New York. The state operates a hatchery at the head of the Salmon River that runs into Lake Ontario. The fish run up the river every fall and are "steared" into the hatchery through man made steps. Once they are in the hatchery pools they have the eggs or sperm miked out of them. They are grown to a fingerling size and released back into the lake. During each fall the fishing is crazy for them during the run with the average size being 15 to 20 pounds. Many fish run in the 22 to 28 pound range with 30 pounders being caught occasionally. There are several nearby smaller streams that support a small natural run as well.