30,000 Chinook Allocated to Northern Door

While nothing is definite yet, it looks like the grassroots campaign by Gills Rock charter boat captains and friends to have Gills Rock included in the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Chinook salmon stocking strategy might have worked.

“You spoke and we listened,” said DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp in announcing the 2014 stocking strategy. “This stocking strategy reflects your input and will continue to help deliver the fantastic fishing opportunities you’ve enjoyed on Lake Michigan and its tributaries.”

In a story that ran in the Pulse in August, the Gills Rock charter captains spoke of the lack of Chinook and a huge downturn in business that reverberated throughout the community because of poor fishing. Their research found that Gills Rock hadn’t been part of the DNR’s stocking strategy in the 21st century.

The concerned citizens used an Oct. 12 fisheries forum in Cleveland, Wis., to get out the word about the Chinook situation at the top of the Door. They were assisted by the Liberty Grove Town Board, which addressed letters to legislators and state and federal officials about the lack of fish in Gills Rock, and gave $500 for the Gills Rock citizens to make a video about the scarcity of Chinook.

The 2014 stocking numbers were released the second week of December, with a total of 808,255 Chinook fingerlings to be stocked at Lake Michigan ports in 2014, with 120,000 going to Strawberry Creek (down from 150,000 stocked there in 2012), where the DNR maintains the main egg collection facility for Chinook, and another 30,000 fish allocated for Northern Door.

In the past, the Northern Door stocking was done at Ellison Bay, which the Gills Rock charter captains say makes no sense because there are no charter operations in Ellison Bay and the fish released there apparently don’t make it up to Gills Rock.

Dave Boyarski, DNR fish supervisor based in the Sturgeon Bay office, said a public meeting will be held at a date and place to be determined to discuss the Northern Door stocking options.

Capt. Don Grasse of King Fisher Charters in Gills Rock, one of the concerned citizens working to bring Chinook back to Gills Rock, said he would take the lead in raising funds for holding nets to allow the fingerling salmon to reach the next stage in their life cycle, the smolt stage, when they are more likely to survive the multitude of predators that could decimate the 30,000 fingerling population.

A recent bill introduced by Rep. Garey Bies that allows the use of nets for just such purposes was signed into law on Dec. 12 by Gov. Scott Walker.

“If we can get 30,000 a year and get them to grow up, that will help quite a bit,” Grasse said.

Here are stocking numbers for other counties: Kenosha County, 76,919; Racine County, 75,338; Milwaukee County, 83,046; Ozaukee County, 89,049; Sheboygan County, 86,164; Manitowoc County, 83,515; Kewaunee County, 95,142; Oconto/Marinette counties, 69,082.