History of Salmon in the Great Lakes

Lake Michigan is a world renown freshwater fishery with some of the tastiest table fare around. However this wasn’t always the case until the introduction of Salmon. Salmon which are not native to the great lakes region, were introduced into the lakes to help control the exploding Alewife population. Alewifes which many have heard of but not many have seen in the past several years are a 2-5 inch long flat fish that in the summer months move in closer to shore which can be deadly as big changes in lake temperature or adverse wave conditions may cause large numbers to die thus littering the beach with rotting fish carcasses.

In the late 60’s the Alewife problem had reached epic proportions and with an almost non existent recreational fishery and beaches full of awful smelling fish the Michigan Department of Natural Resources tapped Howard Tanner to “ Do Something”. The problem at the time, commercial fishing and Lamprey had virtually wiped out the natural predators Trout and Burbot. To put this into perspective the Alewife accounted for 95% of the total biomass of the Great Lakes.

The very first Salmon to be introduced was the kokanee salmon into Wilkerson Creek. Unfortunately the Kokanee Salmon did not take and it was back to the drawing board. Tanner’s next test would be with the Coho salmon but the eggs would be hard to source. Tanner ended up getting lucky and found a surplus of eggs in the Pacific northwest. Having obtained the eggs and successfully hatched them, the fingerling Coho would be ready for introduction into Bear Creek and the Platt River. The Coho were successful and was followed shortly thereafter with the Chinook (King) Salmon . We thank Tanner for helping create one of the finest freshwater fisheries on earth!!