The Michigan Charter Boat Association celebrated 40 Years of Excellence at its Annual Conference held the third weekend of October at the Doubletree Hotel in Holland, MI.  Well over 100 captains and their wives, first mates, dignitaries, congress representatives, state fisheries biologists, the United States Coast Guard and special presenters were all part of the gala event.  Several long-time MCBA members said, ìIt was the best attended, most educational, and informative conference we have ever attended.

After an appreciated welcome to a packed conference room, President Terry Walsh turned the Saturday morning meeting over to Dr. Dan O’Keefe, Southwest District Extension Educator, who would act as the dayís moderator.

The morning’s first speaker was Jay Wesley, Acting Lake Michigan Basin Coordinator from the Department of Natural Resources.Lake Michigan had a great 2010 year class of alewife with a high survival rate that produced the most exciting Chinook salmon fishery we’ve seen in many years, Wesley said.  The fish were much larger than in previous years.  Twenty-pound salmon were pretty common last summer, and I think we can expect similar results in 2012. Wesley added that the angler catch per excursion was nearly six salmon.

The Coho salmon and brown trout fisheries were a pleasant surprise, according to Wesley, who said, They showed up in good numbers in angler catches.  And again, like the Chinook, they were much larger than in previous years.  One Coho tipped the certified scales at 29-pounds!

President Terry Walsh at the 40th annual MCBA Dinner

Wesley feels the brown trout fishery will be even better next year.  Steelhead remain stable, and lake trout are producing good catches.  Yellow perch fishing was considered good with much larger fish caught this year, and walleye and small mouth bass are developing fisheries.

A mass marking of Chinook salmon is also under way, Wesley said.  ìOur goal is to eventually mark all steelhead and Coho we stock as well.  This will be accomplished using a number of high-technology trailers that will coordinate the effort throughout the Great Lakes.  The Chinook salmon will have a numbered tag in their adipose fin that will indicate where they were stocked, Wesley continued.  Once they begin showing up in angler catches as mature fish, we will have a better understanding of their movement throughout the Great Lakes. Wisconsin and Indiana are also cooperating in a similar marking system, Wesley said.

Fisheries biologist Dave Borgeson provided the Lake Huron overview for 2011, noting walleye now have replaced Chinook salmon as the dominate game fish in the lake.

Walleye represent over 40-percent of all recreational and charter harvest of walleye, Borgeson said, while Chinook are only eight to ten percent of the annual harvest from Lake Huron.  With the alewife gone, which were once a major predator of young walleye, the walleye population is booming in the lake.  Natural reproduction of walleye is close to six million fish a year, with Canadian rivers contributing largely to those numbers

Borgeson said all Chinook salmon plants at recreational ports have been suspended in Lake Huron except for three locations:  Swan Creek, which provides egg-taking for future stocking; Nun’s Creek (mandated by federal treaty with the Indians); and the Cheboygan River, which continues to sustain a good recreational fishery. Borgeson noted the four-year lake herring stocking program has also been temporally suspended until a more efficient means of collecting eggs during their spawning cycle is found.

Lake herring spawn on off-shore reefs during November,î Borgeson said, ìa time when Lake Huron produces some pretty nasty weather. We just canít collect enough eggs right now to make this program work the way it should.

Yellow perch showed up in improving numbers at Au Gres and Harbor Beach, though this fishery remains overall depressed.  Lake trout fishing continues to be stable.

Donna Westlander, who heads up the statistical data generated by Charter Catch Reports, said more and more captains are using the on-line reporting.  ìHoweverî, she cautioned, ìcaptains must still have a daily catch log onboard their vessels.î  Westlander also encouraged captains to check out the ìCharter Boat Surveyî section on the DNR web page.  Data is included by lake and port for all species each month.  ìIt doesnít take long to figure out the hottest ports for a given species, Westlander said.

Dr. Gary Medows presented a fascinating and educational look at mapping the Great Lakesí currents.  Early mapping was done by dropping a bottle overboard with a note inside saying where it was dropped. Once found, the location was reported.  Now anglers and boaters simply fire up their computers and go to the NOAA Weather web page, where a wealth of information on currents (their speed and direction), wave heights, wind direction and speed, and much more can be found.  Serious captains would not venture from port without first viewing the current NOAA Weather site.

• Slash three years off the current Army Corps of Engineers’ study, from the end of 2015 to the end of 2012;
• Direct the President (or his designee) to oversee the study and ensure it is completed on time;
• Require the Army Corps to use information found in independent studies of the problem rather than duplicating such efforts, thereby speeding up the process;
• Force the Army Corps to use the Congressionally-mandated standard of “preventing” the spread of invasive species instead of their unilateral decision to instead look for ways to merely “reduce the risk” of such a spread.

“These states understand that the job-killing invasive species flowing freely though the wide-open doorway in Chicago must be stopped now,” said Schuette. “We are turning up the heat on federal officials dragging their feet at our expense. It is too bad we need legislation to do this, but it is time for the Army Corps of Engineers to get to work.”

Schuette recently announced the results of his efforts to build a coalition beyond the Great Lakes, which resulted in 16 states joining with Michigan so far: Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. These states have joined Michigan’s fight to stop Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes because the “open door” at Chicago has allowed invasive species to flow both ways, both into and out of the Great Lakes, reaching far and wide across the United States.
In July 2011, the Army Corps of Engineers released a list of 40 aquatic invasive species with the highest risk of traveling through the waterway in either direction. Of those species, 30 pose a high-risk to the Mississippi River Basin and ten, including Asian carp, pose a high-risk to the Great Lakes Basin. Current invasive species control efforts in the Chicago waterway, like electrical barriers, are temporary and experimental and do not address the threat of all 40 species, especially those that may travel downstream.

The Stop Asian Carp Act was introduced earlier this year by sponsors Representative Dave Camp (R-MI) (H.R. 892) and Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) (S.471). The coalition letter and supportive briefing paper were both sent to Chairmen and Ranking Members of the following congressional committees charged with reviewing the legislation: the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the House Committee on Natural Resources, and the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Schuette noted a recent study commissioned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and conducted by independent scientists at the Center for Aquatic Conservation at the University of Notre Dame identified the Chicago Waterway as a “major pathway” for the spread of invasive species, concluding that “the canal represents a potential highway to environmental havoc for many species that pose a high risk to both the Great Lake and the Mississippi basins.”