For the past two years Ohio has drafted Wisconsin steelhead eggs after Michigan’s trout eggs went AWOL.
The Ohio Division of Wildlife found it necessary both in 2015 and 2016 to obtain fertilized eggs from Wisconsin when Michigan was unable to supply the same from its Little Manistee River. And the Wildlife Division might find it necessary to again seek out Wisconsin's assistance if Michigan’s Little Mainistee strain of steelhead trout remain uncooperative.
For several years the Wildlife Division has obtained fertilized steelhead eggs from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Michigan’s fisheries biologists would strip live-net-captured female steelhead of their eggs and males of their sperm, or milt.
The fishes came from that state’s Little Mainistee River, located on the upper west coast of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula and also a Lake Michigan tributary.
These fertilized eggs were then transported to Ohio Division of Wildlife’s Castalia Trout Hatchery. There the eggs hatched in steelhead fry, growing and fattening up for eventual release into several Northeast Ohio streams.
However, for
reasons associated with nature and egg availability and not politics or college
football, Ohio was unable to obtain Michigan/Little Manistee River steelhead
eggs.
Consequently,
the Wildlife Division turned to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
And here Wisconsin plumbed its Lake Michigan tributaries for Chamber Creek and
Gaharaska River strains of steelhead. The former stream is found in Washington
State and the latter stream in the Province of Ontario.
Importantly
for Ohio’s steelhead fisheries program the fish that develop from the
Wisconsin-supplied eggs are scarcely different from those trout that develop
from Michigan’s Little Manistee-supplied eggs, says Phil Hillman, the fish
management administrator for the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s District Three
(Northeast Ohio) office.
“Our first
priority is to obtain eggs from Little Manistee steelhead but we had to look
elsewhere so that was Wisconsin,” Hillman also said. “It’s good to have a
back-up.”
In fact,
says Hillman, when the Wildlife Division was first angling for a replacement
for its home-grown London-strain of rainbow trout the agency looked at the
possibility of utilizing the Chamber Creek-strain found in Wisconsin.
“That strain
has been a very solid performer wherever it’s been stocked,” Hillman said of
the Chamber Creek steelhead strain.
Hillman said
the Wildlife Division even offered an exchange of some sort for the eggs but
Wisconsin was happy to oblige.
So what Ohio
obtained in both 2015 and 2016 were all ready fertilized eggs; enough in each
case to fuel the state’s Castalia Hatchery to raise and then release
450,000-plus steelhead for stocking into five Northeast Ohio Streams: the
Vermilion, Rocky, Chagrin, and Grand rivers along with Conneaut Creek, says
Hillman.
And possibly
for this year as well: the Ashtabula River, which might see a planting in April
of around 50,000 six-inch to eight-inch long steelhead, Hillman also says.
For Ohio’s
trout anglers, Hillman quickly points out, the deviations between Little
Manistee steelhead and the trout raised from the Wisconsin-supplied eggs are
negligible in terms of what to expect fishing-wise.
“The timing
of the runs is much the same, and the lengths and weights will be similar
(too),”” Hillman said.
Asked if it
might make sense for the Wildlife Division to capture its own steelhead stock from
one of the Northeast Ohio streams, Hillman said such an effort is technically
achievable but less practical than simply knocking on the door of a neighboring
Great Lakes state natural resources department.
“That would
likely require us to close off a portion of one stream during the run and also
require us to perform extensive testing for disease,” Hillman said. “It’s a
whole lot less expensive to obtain eggs elsewhere.”
And if
Little Manistee-strain fish are once again unavailable, well, then, Wisconsin
has become a dependable partner, says Hillman.
“We’re happy to get the eggs from Wisconsin, and
we very much appreciate that state’s willingness to help us; we don’t want to
see any interruption in our successful steelhead fisheries program,” Hillman
said.- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
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