Within four years of the initial planting of Coho, anglers in Lake Michigan harbours started catching salmons! The fish that came from those deep cold waters were enviable in taste to the Pacific Ocean Salmon from where they species originated. Anglers liked what they were catching and demanded more. The state responded and throughout the next decade, pumped millions and millions of Salmons into great lakes Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario. It was a fishery explosion and Salmon-mania swept the US states throughout the 70's and early 80's.
Canadians got in on the action too. Bordering waters often seen summer migrations of huge schools of salmon sweep into Ontario waters. Anglers from Sauble Beach to the Sarnia area, St Clair River and the north shore of Lake Erie communities all reaped the benefits of the Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York salmon programs. Ontario started greasing the salmon wheel in Lake Ontario's metro region in the mid 70's. Actually most of Ontario's Provincial Salmon effort stayed in Lake Ontario for many years.
The bordering US states really didn't like their hard earned programs stretching into the creels of Ontario anglers and sought ways of keeping their fish more local. One way was to reduce plantings in near border water areas such as lower Lake Huron. Other methods included scenting of hatchery waters with pheronomes and spiking harbors with those same scents after hatchery fish were released into the wilds. Many of the "stay home" projects worked to a point that impacted salmon fishing on the Ontario sides of the great lakes. Except of course for the metro region of Lake Ontario which seen continuous large plantings of salmons and Trouts.
The rest of Ontario started to scream hell at the OMNR as Salmon fishing started to fall off in all regions outside of metro. The Ontario MNR was stuck deep into a provincial Splake program at that time. The OMNR was bound and determined to create a cross between a Speckled Trout (Brook trout) and native Lake trout that would reproduce and become self sustaining. The anglers would not hear of any long term plans because they wanted their Salmon fishing returned immediately. The OMNR responded in the early 80's to Ontario's non metro angling fraternity by creating CFIP.... community fisheries involvement programs. CFI first landed in Sarnia which saw government supplement to volunteer run Salmon and trout hatcheries. The government supplied the initial expertise and start up funding while volunteer organizations such as the Bluewater Anglers raised additional funding and supplied the manpower to keep the operation working. Not a terribly bad deal for Ontario. Points were raised as to the magnitude of Salmon production from such CFI programs as compared to plantings by the OMNR in Lake Ontario but anglers did accept the offering. To this day the Bluewater anglers still raise and release 200,000 Chinook Salmon annually that are released into lower Lake Huron.
It is a generous number that is produced by a relative handful of volunteers but is certainly shadowed by the previous plantings in that region by the Michigan DNR which often exceeded 2 million fish. The present fishery is not comparable to the fishery of the late 70's but the fishery is alive and well. Hard core salmon hunters have decent numbers of fish to catch throughout the year.
In more recent history, the Michigan program crapped out in Lake Michigan when fodder species such as alewife and smelt bottomed out in numbers. With nothing left to eat, salmon plantings were dramatically reduced to a level that would allow some fodder fish to reagin their populations. Lake Erie seen similar moves and so did Lake Ontario. A couple seasons ago, even the OMNR reduced the plantings of salmon into Lake Ontario by half. With half of the voting population screaming out of metro "we want our fish back", it must have became an election issue because most of the planting numbers were reinstated the following year. Not all, but close.
The most comical planting took place in eastern Lake Superior. A load of Pink Salmon being transported by aeroplane was destined for the east coast. The release door were accidentally opened and those Pink salmon that managed to survive the free fall without a chute, started rearing in Superiors cold pristine waters. Since the mid 70's, Pinks can readily be caught throughout Superior and into upper Lake Huron as far south as Goderich.
Another historical twist was the elimination of the Slake program by the OMNR. After they spent somewhere around a skabillion or two dollars and couldn't make them reproduce, the program was scrapped. All Splake produced were sterile or at least forgot how to reproduce after being genetically altered.
One thing the Salmon fishery did add to Ontario was a totally encompassing sport. It touched the lives of every Ontario angler. Billions of dollars were spent on specialized equipment, new rods, reels etc. Charterboat operators popped up nearly over night to facilitate those who couldn't afford the $100,000 investment to get out on the big great lakes waters in mid summer. And yet, in the spring and fall of every year, anyone with a rod and reel can go to any harbour or river mouth emptying into any of the great lakes and chance themselves a battle with a 30 pound Chinook salmon.
Take a look down the Credit or Ganaraska river in October and watch the hoards of people vying for position on the stream banks, sometimes shoulder to shoulder all in hopes of catching one of those giants that are teeming the waters seemingly just outside of reach. Look at the faces of the anglers, young and old alike, all races inclusive and present.
Check out the Saugeen or Maitland rivers off Lake Huron after dark. Watch the little headlamps bouncing about as anglers make their way across slippery cool rocks to their favourite Salmon hole. Salmon like to move in at night and anglers are often there to attempt to intercept their movements upstream.
Take a walk down the pier at Kincardine in August or visit the Harbours around Sarnia in late April. See the families making a morning of Salmon fishing. At these sites you can always catch a member of the local club who is more than willing and quite proud to take you on a tour through "their hatchery". Yes, their hatchery. CFI made hatcheries a very personal and proud to own item in Ontario. Don't even suggest anything less to the people whose hard work and toil went into building those hatcheries. Yes, salmon changed the face of Ontario's fishery. Anglers want them, family tables crave them, politicians use them, people are proud to call them their own.
