King size

[Gill-T]

I wonder since king stocking has all but stopped on Lake Superior and Lake Huron, kings in Lake Michigan have bait to chase in three lakes if they want to go roaming. Lake Ontario kings are stuck. 

[BRsnow]

3 hours ago, Gill-T said:

I wonder since king stocking has all but stopped on Lake Superior and Lake Huron, kings in Lake Michigan have bait to chase in three lakes if they want to go roaming. Lake Ontario kings are stuck. 

They were all leaving Huron to Lake Michigan so they cut stocking when the baitfish disappeared. Lake Michigan has increased stocking but also estimates of 50-70% of the kings are natural reproduction. Currently I think the bait fish situation is stable. Time will tell if it holds,

[spoonfed-1]

Without reading all the responses to this post, fishing the salmon river area I've been seeing more two year old fish maturing every year for the last 10 years or so. It's not a lack of bait situation causing a lower weight thing its two year old fish maturing. Period.

Edited August 1, 2023 by spoonfed-1

[Gill-T]

Glen, I don’t disagree with you about more two year olds maturing lately but the majority of this thread was a discussion on how the top end weights of three and four year old kings has diminished. Are you seeing smaller 3 or 4 year olds in the river or are we all just being outsmarted?

[Gator]

I wonder how much of the early reproduction is due to the kings spending generations in fresh water rather than in the salt? Does anyone know whether other transplants become reproductively mature earlier in freshwater? 

[GAMBLER]

12 hours ago, Gator said:

I wonder how much of the early reproduction is due to the kings spending generations in fresh water rather than in the salt? Does anyone know whether other transplants become reproductively mature earlier in freshwater? 

I read a study that showed kings will mature early when boat levels are low.  I will try to dig up the study I read.

[hunter59]

well the last time i checked, ,,  for the last 100 years the government has given us nothing but lies again and again and again , lol , follow the  money !!!!!!!!!!! lololol 

[Gill-T]

33 minutes ago, GAMBLER said:

I read a study that showed kings will mature early when boat levels are low.  I will try to dig up the study I read.

I think the study said the opposite. More bait means fish will be more likely to mature earlier. 

[Gator]

This is a review article that summarizes the latest work on factors influencing lifetime reproductive success in salmonid species. It's dense but worth wading through, although oriented more toward generating progeny than spawning age (which is just one factor among many). Obviously, a complicated topic. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8372082/

 

A recent study of Alaskan salmon in a VERY good journal suggests that the declining body size they see in their returns is driven mainly by earlier reproductive age and can be attributed at least in part to increased competition for food (you have to see the number of hatchery derived pink salmon - forget their returning to spawn every two years, the streams are littered with them on a yearly basis). It's not Lake Ontario, but similar principles should apply. 

 

 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17726-z

 

[Sk8man]

The main problem here is the myopic way we are looking at the picture. The Earth as we know it is radically changing.  It is headed at least in the short run for a much warmer climate possibly followed by another ice age as has been the case multiple times before. If you step back and look at the larger picture - many things are disappearing from the earth including billions of fish, birds, insects, mammals, reptiles etc. For many species the temperature tolerances have already been exceeded.The total picture is much greater than just the size of fish decreasing. The planet itself is on the way out in terms of the way things have been in our lifetime and man's activities may have increased the rate of change; but not the process itself as it appears to be an evolutionary process of the Earth itself. A lot of folks just don't want to look at the reality of this stuff.

Edited August 5, 2023 by Sk8man

[john1947]

We need more trees,we need to put a sun screen out there in space to block heat

[HB2]

21 hours ago, Sk8man said:

The main problem here is the myopic way we are looking at the picture. The Earth as we know it is radically changing.  It is headed at least in the short run for a much warmer climate possibly followed by another ice age as has been the case multiple times before. If you step back and look at the larger picture - many things are disappearing from the earth including billions of fish, birds, insects, mammals, reptiles etc. For many species the temperature tolerances have already been exceeded.The total picture is much greater than just the size of fish decreasing. The planet itself is on the way out in terms of the way things have been in our lifetime and man's activities may have increased the rate of change; but not the process itself as it appears to be an evolutionary process of the Earth itself. A lot of folks just don't want to look at the reality of this stuff.

All this has absolutely nothing to do with the King situation we are talking about in LO . 

The invasive  Zebra mussels filtered out the base of the food chain and the lake could not support the massive bait supply it once had .And a lot of the reason we had so much bait was from all the phosphorus  from fertilizers and laundry detergents , etc back then . Which if you remember was the reason salmon were stocked to begin with . Remember the lake surface shimmering with dead alwive and the huge piles  on the eastern  shores they used payloaders to remove ? 

The lake ecosystem has evolved because of that , not global warming. 

Look at what the gobies have done to the Smallmouth fishing . A complete turnaround from what it once was . 

 

 

 

 

[Sweet Caroline]

Spot on about the zebra mussels. IMO the biggest factor causing bait declines. The lake was filthy with bait up until the early 90’s when zebra mussels took hold. Zebra mussels probably have leveled off now, but their continued existence, the low phosphorus loads and general cleaning of the the Great Lakes is making it hard for bait to bounce back to the levels we had. To consistently grow 30 and 40lb fish requires enormous amounts of bait.  Fishing would not be as good as it is now if we had the amount of bait we had back then. Michigan has seemed to bounce back a bit with the size of their salmon, with the new Great Lakes record king being caught in recent years.Their salmon have been stocked before LO and have had plenty of time to evolve as our LO have. They experienced a huge decline in size for well over a decade but were able to bounce back. Gives me hope with our LO fish. I do believe there has to be a balance between quantity and quality for that to happen. Quantity is not something many folks are willing to sacrifice though. If I recall, some of the large high 30 and 40lb salmon caught on the Canadian side of LO in recent years were rare 4 yr old fish. Selecting for larger and older size Kings at the hatchery is one thing we can do to keep size up given our current ecosystem. Not much we can do about everything else but that is one thing that is totally in our control. Again, if your parents and grandparents all lived to be 90 years old, it is likely you will live long too. I know, not a guarantee, but the odds are in your favor. Would make a huge difference if even 5% of our Kings could make it to 4 yrs. That said, is there  any data on how many returns are 3 and 4 yr olds? Not sure if there is even enough returns of those age structures to get the eggs we need for stocking?

Edited August 6, 2023 by Sweet Caroline

[Sk8man]

You missed my point....I give up For many species the temperature tolerances have already been exceeded. It could be that decreased body mass is more adaptive in adjusting to this primary problem going on and is an initial response to it (i.e. increasing global temps). Earlier maturation may also be related to the same phenomenon (an attempt to maintain the species when under pressure and stress).

Edited August 7, 2023 by Sk8man

[HB2]

According to the " experts " the world was supposed to burst into flames by now . 

 

Hey , now that I think about , maybe it has . And we are all dead and we are in hell . The way the country is now , it sure seems like it . 

 

 

[Pappy]

One more up of coffee.....

And this will be a mental health issue too!

[Sk8man]

Sometimes it seems much easier to look at the black and white than shades of grey.

Edited August 7, 2023 by Sk8man

[whaler1]

Just got my email back from the Governor's office. According to Kathy it’s a combination of climate change, systemic racism and lax gun laws. 
 

[Gill-T]

Ya but our riggers don’t use Natural Gas so we will ok. 

[GAMBLER]

3 hours ago, Gill-T said:

Ya but our riggers don’t use Natural Gas so we will ok. 

I’m applying for a grant to put solar panels on the Escape II!  

[ut_falcon]

Interesting thing is although the worldwide average temperature may be increasing the temperature trend in eastern North America is actually flat, you can find this in the literature about climate change online but the media doesn't like to report on it since it's not a catchy story they can sell.  Have a look at maximum ice cover on Lake Ontario since the mid 80's its actually pretty consistent with cold and warm years but overall trend is flat.  We're still feeling the after effects of the cold winters in 2014/2015 in my opinion as we had 30# salmon hitting the boards in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013.  Michigan had a size rebound so don't know about natural selection for size being a factor since they can still produce a 47 pound king.  There seems to be a fair amount of bait still in the lake so I don't know what's going on really, I thought we'd see bigger fish this year based on the last few winters.

 

[Tyee II]

Wow...climate change is decreasing King size over there? It seems to be doing the opposite for the Ales and Kings over here on LM