Document 2qDaQGd30YGGgVYz4w1aYqXYR

Atlantic Salmon Stocking Program Big Flop So Far Tom Oprc Emil Dean Catches Fish By the Tons ' MANISTEE . Someone one* mid that gill nett ware the moat efficient method of fishing known to man. Or maybe it waa grenades. ' I don't recall. But in case of a doubt. I nominate Emil Dean. I always knew he was a good fisherman. And as a profes sional chartarboat skipper and steelhead guide, he fishes most every day the weather allow*. But I didn't realize Jut* how successful he was at it until the other day. Wa were reding along Lake Michigan'* swell* between lake trout aboard Dean's craft, tha Mary E and I want down Into tha eabin ta fetch a beer er two. 1 pi*d Dean's cirefully logged record book on the con sole and, since trolling along anywhere without fish is bor In*. in my humble opinion, I sat down for a minuts to perusa the skipper's past history. ' -' Thirty minutes, a couple scraps.of paper and some scrib bling later, I sat back in wonderment. _ From April to October last year, fishing first out of South Havep for lakers, biown trout, spring coho and the occa sional chinook and stenlhead -- end then from his home port of Manistee for more lakers, bigger cohos, Chinook and the odd' brown trout -- Dean's Mary E had taken aboard close to 1,209 fish. That's strictly houk and line fishing, mind you. Greedy lake trout actually hit two spoons at one# for Emil Deaa. SO FIGURE IT out for vourself. Daan told me once he figured the average fish his parties caught weighed seven H> eight pounds. That's probably close. Most lakers weigh more today and oohos (counting tha smaller spring variety! less. Browns are usually less than that and chinook much more. But at, let's say, seven pounds, it totals out at 8,400 pounds. , Get that! More than four TONS of fish were boated in 1974 off the Mary E! That, ef course, doesn't even taka Iota account tha steal- bead ha takas fall and winter on the Big Maaietee er the 91. Joe Rivers. They arsp't as numerous, naturally, but Dean's own mark Is a fish topping 71 pounus. (He even caught tha atats record whitefish this year, a fish weighing more tbaa 18 pounds.) what price this success? Perseverance, Dean aays . . . sticking to it when Che going's rough. Paying attention to water temperature! (tha ihermocllne), particularly for lake trout, the "bread-and-butter" hah for all cherterboatera, depths, trolling speeds and lures. Right now, he says the best oombinations for lakers aeem to be Fireplugs or Rattle Tadpollies in the greenish fluorescent colors. Manistee Wobblers and other smelter, thin spoons are okay, too, often fished alone on the line. The plugs are usually trailing cowbell attractors (Meat-, designs and makes his own). ' For cohos later on, he uses Dodger and streamer combi nations almost exclusively. OUR LUCK THIS DAY was probably a little below tha norm. After a long morning drouth, one 11-pound laker waa hauled aboard by Bill Boawell of Southfield. Brother Jack Boswell followed with a six or seven-pound coho that grabbed Fireplug as it wes being lowered on the downrig ger. Then we waited ... and waited ... and eventually a mall flurry ef lekers hit and two more were boated, Jehu Markham of Livonia managing the first ana. Mate Randy Cornell slipped the landing net under the final fish just before qulrlng time. It wasn't a big haul, to be sure, just five fish Dean's average take-home number, according 10 the log book, i< about nine or 10. Figuring a half-dozen hresk-offs or tripped plugs where the fish didn't get hooked, and that's a load of. action for any full day's trolling. I guess I just hadn't realized how deadly a hook and line can be in the hands ol the right man. MONS 0 3 0 9 1 1 - BY TOM OPRE 1 Ppm Ptw* OvMmt WrtHr - BOYNE FALLS -- Hie return here this cummer oI the Boyne River's Atlentic calmon hac been riisasterous. But nu one fc ready to scrap the fledgling program Just yet, least of all the Michigan biologist who administers it. ' Sieve Swan, Department iof Natural Resources fisheries expert at Gaylord, recognises the problem is a big one. Just 42 of some 13,000 Atlantics from the 1073 plant have re* turned. / All but six of them have died from some mysterious ceuse. . And these are to be sacrificed this week tor study by a fish disease expert from a Toronto University. ' `There could be many causes for the dieoffs," Swan believes, "but we're most Inclined to thirk it's some kind of environmental stress." Pollutants -- like PCBs and DDT-- could be building in the salmon as they iwimand feed in the Great Lakes. If so, It could begin to effect the fish ns they undergo the rigors of spawning and development of sexual glands, "It*i the most popular theory, anyway," Swan said, ad* mitting that the DNR had no firm idea what caused the . disease, an illneaa that starts with spotty blemishes turning into red lesions that eventually become Weeding ulcers on the flshee' skin. SINCE IT'S FREVELANT on the lower Jaw' -- often producing an actual hole In the jaw -- biologists think U , may be associated with some thyroid problem. "That's hopefully whet the Canadian expert will determine," Swan said, "sinee ha's an ondrocrlne system specialist" Such loaions are characteristic of a common fish disease, fruncutout. But Swan points out that spores of that disease re not common to all the dying Atlantics. "If Ifi a tingle cause -- not a combination of environ* mental damage -- It's not a pathogen, no common virus, bacteria or parasite," he said confidentally. "Hint much we do know." 1 Michigan experts have not recovered any eggs from the Atlantics bought in Quebec and planted la the Boyne and An Sable rivers. Only IS survived from acme 181 shewing up at the. Boyne weir laat year, but they were att males. Yet the high number of returns, plus an angler's creel success of possibly 73 fish, make biologists confident. Some 230 fish actually represented 2*4 percent survival return on the initial plant of 10,000 smolts in 1072. That percentage compares favorably with survival rates for Chinook. ' But this summer's disappointing returns sKow less than 90 creeled by anglers in addition to the few showing up to die at the weir site. AT FIRST, BIOLOGISTS thought warmer river water temperatures could be the cause. But an expensive well project (whidi now slows 800 gallons of 47*degree water per minute) keep# the holding pood **1 now, yet the salmon still die. "Perhaps the *73 plant of fish didn't smolt nut of the river within a week or so, as it normal," Swan offered. But he doesn't really believe that himself. Maybe the young fkh wars stressed when planted and died two or three weeks later. But there's no way to prove that. . Imprinting In IB7S might havt failed, teo, since biologists released tbs smolts directly Into the Boyne rather than balding .them In the weir pond for a week or two. Or perhaps open lake trailers are getting's sizable share before the Atlantics run the river. Swan doubts it, thong!:. "Most fish hove been caught in the streams," he said, pointing nut that even the current eteU record, a ?9-poum', oneounce fish, was taken at the mouth at the Ao Sable this past spring. x If, Indeed, the chute is environmenUl snd our Atlantic^ m Outdoor Calendar will not prove to be a future eggs source for sustaining the runs, aHtis not lost, according to Swan. * "W can have hatchery production from a protected brood stock," he pointed out, "just as we do for rainbows and browns and, up until recently, for lake trout" WAITING IN THE WINGS, too, are the Gullipeng strain of Atlantics, imported from Sweden. Throe fish reportedly reach 70 pounds in their native environment and are on* tirely landlocked in fresh water, unlike the ones ws've Men stocking, the Cascspedis strain, which reach adulthood to die open sea. Soma 15,000 more Cascapedia strain fish were stocked hi the'Boyne this spring, plus 3.500 Gullspangs (some Guile* Gangs went into Gull Lake, too, to test their feasibility in irge Inland lakes). Swan is confident something will work out "We need (beee fish," be said. 'They ran bsttad dm steelhead and befere the eeboa, right le tbs mlddla sf tbs rammer tourist season. And tbe best Hiking eecnrs at neon, net midnight like tbe brawn (rent.".. Atlantics are * close cousin to the brown trout, another fish that's not native to Michigan. Britain's sea trout, for instance, are simply sea*run brown trout. "Our problem now is to isolate the disease factor. If possible,'' Swan said, "and to *ind a remedy, If one exists." If not, Michigan will likely go to a hatchery brood stock production which would be more limited, naturally. "Atlantics are a sensitive fish," Swes added, "a goad Indicator species. I'd like te think ere can makt our anvtree* meat good enough enee again -- In mayba B ynars ... or 30#, who knows? -- that fish like Atlantics can survive naturally. "We'd know lor sure then we're on die right track. For if fish tike the Atlantics go, can othar iuss sensitive spades and eventually mankind be too far behind?'1^ THE DETROIT FREE PRESS DETROIT, MICH. [m] 520,000 ($) 550,000 AUG 1 0 1975 (bmwb) HONS 030912