“Mixsawbah reared 150,000 cohos that were stocked in the fall of 2007,” he said. “The remaining 90,000 cohos from our stocking goal came from Bodine Hatchery.”

That bodes well for Indiana’s coho fishing in the years to come.

CHINOOK SALMON
Chinook (or king) salmon fishing in Indiana has been excellent during the last few years. Typically, the kings don’t begin to appear in our nearshore waters until some time in April. Depending on how quickly the water temperature rises into the mid-to upper 40s, the first kings may show up in early April or they may wait until nearer the end of the month.

In any case, the chinook numbers just continue to increase as the year progresses. By June and July, salmon trollers should expect a solid mix of cohos and kings, with a few steelhead mixed in for good measure. By August, the catch will likely be predominantly kings, ranging in size from nearly 10 pounds to more than 20 pounds.

Even though the Mixsawbah Hatchery was offline for a full year, Indiana’s chinook stockings did not miss a beat.

“We were fortunate enough to get chinook from the state of Michigan in 2006,” Breidert said. “Mixsawbah produced all of the chinook for 2007 from eggs received in the fall of 2006.”

Besides the chinook stockings from Indiana and the other Lake Michigan border states, natural reproduction has also begun to boost chinook numbers in the lake. Up until a few years ago, most experts agreed that natural reproduction of salmon in Lake Michigan tributaries was negligible. The majority of the lake’s tributary streams had problems with warm water, pollution, silt buildup and lack of good spawning habitat.

The streams have been cleaned up considerably in recent years, and although there are still problems, the chinook have found a way to reproduce successfully. Most of the natural reproduction is occurring in Michigan and Wisconsin streams, but Indiana creeks also contribute. Since the kings don’t usually appear off our shores in numbers until summer, anglers who only fish for spring cohos may not even realize that the number of chinook salmon has swelled!

Trollers who target spring and summer kings use a variety of methods to tempt them to strike. Thin trolling spoons are always productive, and color combinations of silver/green, silver/blue and silver/purple are often very effective. Large plugs are also traditional king-catchers, and the well-known J-Plug is still the most popular. Chrome is hard to beat, but other colors like chrome/chartreuse and green glow are also excellent choices. Dodger-and-fly combinations will also take plenty of summer kings, as do “meat rigs” -- strips of cut herring run behind large flashers or dodgers. Although many of the kings hanging around offshore in August are 3-year-old fish, a good percentage of them will actually be mature 4-year-olds. At the end of August, those adults will move in close to shore to prepare for the fall spawning run. Breidert was optimistic when asked for a prediction for the fall king run this year. “The 2008 and 2009 chinook runs to the Little Calumet should be very good,” he said.