Jim Johnson

During the late 1960s, the DNR’s Fisheries Division of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) turned an aquatic wasteland into one of North Americas’ most sensational recreational fisheries. In doing so, the DNR harnessed a disastrous alewife invasion and restored a balanced ecosystem in our Great Lakes. This column is the second of three installments about the creation of this Great Lakes offshore recreational fishery.

Last column left off with the tragic storm of September 23, 1967, during the height of the first huge salmon run. The storm caught nearly 1,000 boats off the shores of northern Lake Michigan. Most were small boats designed for inland lakes. And there was not a harbor of refuge or adequate boat launching facilities in the vicinity.

Eventually, Great Lakes anglers invested in bigger, safer boats and the State began a program of “harbors of refuge”, most with public boat launching ramps. Now the salmon could be pursued safely.

Another barrier to harvesting this salmon bounty was locating them during the summer months when the fish ranged over millions of acres of water. Finding them in the fall was no problem because the mature salmon returned to spawn where they were stocked in streams and harbors.

But where were they during the spring and summer months? The DNR’s Research Vessel Chinook was assigned the job of finding out.

During the early 1970s, the Chinook was rigged with trolling gear, including outriggers and downriggers capable of fishing up to 96 lures at once. The Chinook (Patrol Boat Number 3, renamed for this assignment) plied the waters of both Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, from Saugatuck, Lake Michigan, to Georgian Bay, Ontario, in Lake Huron. They checked the health of the salmon, looking at how well they survived in fresh water (they were from the Pacific, after all) and whether they consumed the pestilential alewives. And they mapped where salmon were during summer, what depths they were concentrated, and what lures worked best. The crew would then report their findings daily for distribution to the press. I remember working as an intern in the Lansing office of the Fisheries Division of the DNR in 1971 and hearing the Chinook’s daily reports. Stan Lievense, with the Fisheries Division, would excitedly distribute the information to media outlets – newspapers, radio and TV programs, outdoor writers – to get this hot information to the State’s anglers, which helped develop a summer troll fishery for salmon.

The RV Chinook soon found that salmon are usually quite deep during summer, seeking their preferred water temperatures of about 50-55 degrees. That could be 100 feet below the surface. How to get trolling lures that deep? Here is where the ingenuity of Great Lakes anglers kicked in. Early efforts repurposed old tricycle steering forks and wheels, turned upside down. The tire was taken off, and cable with a weight on the end was wrapped around the wheel. The steering bar was lashed to the back of the boat. The pedals were used to raise and lower the weight – my first weights were window sash weights (you need to be about my age to know what sash weights were – they counter balanced windows to make them raise and lower more easily). And the fishing line was attached to the cable near the weight using a clothes pin. This describes the first “downrigger” I used. On the West Coast, Scotty Fishing Co. manufactured the first commercially available recreational downrigger. At about the same time, Walker Downriggers of Kalamazoo began producing downrigging gear locally. Soon other local businesses, such as Big Jon Sports and Cannon, began developing the Great Lakes downrigger. Lures and other tackle specific to the needs of Great Lakes fisheries came on the market. Crucially, Great Lakes anglers migrated to larger, more seaworthy boats. Now, anglers could take full advantage of one of the world’s best salmon fisheries!

Economic impact of the sportfishing boom

The surge in salmon fishing across the Great Lakes brought about significant economic growth, especially for coastal communities. The blossoming recreational fishery soon exceeded the commercial fishery in economic value. As anglers adapted to the expanding fishery, demand soared for boats specifically designed to withstand the vast and sometimes treacherous waters of the Great Lakes. And a charter fishery emerged, with expert captains, large safe vessels, and the latest gear available to anyone interested in engaging in the new fishery. Soon the charter fleet numbered nearly one thousand vessels and accounted for around 10 percent of all recreational fishing trips.

The adoption of advanced depth sounders and navigation equipment further enabled anglers to locate fish, driving technology sales upward.

The economic ripple effect was felt beyond the water. Increased boat ownership boosted sales of boat trailers and tow-vehicles, while coastal communities along the Great Lakes experienced heightened demand for accommodations and restaurants. Visitors drawn by the world-class fishery contributed to the local hospitality industry, generating billions of dollars in revenue across the region.

The crew of the Research Vessel Chinook bore witness to the benefits of the invigorated economies of our coastal communities – before the salmon fishery, the crew often lived aboard the Chinook, packed like sardines in bunk beds, because motel rooms and restaurants within walking distance of harbors were rare. By the mid-1970s, motels and restaurants proliferated and the crew no longer had to live aboard. The bunks could be removed.

The economic impact of salmon went beyond just the fishing industry. Michigan’s beaches were open again. There were occasional alewife die-offs but never again of the magnitude of the 1960s. Beach-oriented tourism was back, thanks to the ravenous salmon.

Harvest rose rapidly. In 1985, recreational harvest in Lake Michigan exceeded 11 million pounds! Most of this harvest was during the spring-summer offshore fishing season for salmon, thanks to new knowledge about fish distribution (from the Research Vessel Chinook’s work), evolving technology, and larger, more seaworthy vessels.

And sport harvests were rivaling those of the commercial fishery. For example, recreational surpassed commercial harvest in Lake Michigan beginning in 2000. Not that the commercial fishery was suffering at that time. Lake whitefish, the prime target of commercial fishers, had begun reproducing again. It seems that sea lamprey control and restoration of a kind of balance between alewives and the stocked predators engendered conditions more favorable for whitefish reproduction. During the 1990s, at the same time harvest of salmon and trout was soaring, commercial whitefish harvest was breaking all-time records.

In Lake Huron, Chinook salmon stocking proved much more successful than coho salmon. But overall harvest was lower than Lake Michigan’s, with Chinook harvests exceeding one million pounds in 1997, which is still remarkable. And Lake Huron boasted another asset – one of the Great Lakes best walleye fisheries, centered in Saginaw Bay. The resulting fishery for trout, salmon, and walleye was extremely popular and led to development of launch sites and accommodations at all major port communities along the Lake Huron shore. The fishery was stable and exciting for a period of more than 15 years, from the mid-1980s to about 2004.

We will look at how the next wave of invasions, zebra and quagga mussels and round gobies, changed everything in Lake Huron and threaten the salmon fishery of Lake Michigan in the next and final installment of Invention of Offshore Recreational Fishing next week.

Be sure to visit the new Besser Museum Fishery Heritage Exhibit which was completed this June, where you can learn more about our shared Great Lakes fishery heritage.