Staff from the Alpena Fisheries Resource Office (FRO) participated in a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Great Lakes Restoration Act funded Lake Huron lake whitefish distribution study, November 7-8 . 

Service staff included Treaty Unit Coordinator Aaron Woldt, Fishery Biologists Adam Kowalski, Scott Koproski, Susan Wells, and Anjie Bowen, and Fish and Wildlife Biologist Heather Rawlings.  Staff conducted all tagging on the commercial trap-net boat the Blonnie W operated by Jim Presau Fisheries.

The goals of this study were to determine the spatial distribution and movement patterns of eight selected lake whitefish stocks in Lake Huron and to determine the contribution of each stock to commercial fishery yields.

The eight stocks selected for this study were Detour, Alpena (Middle Island & Thunder Bay), Saginaw Bay, Burnt Island, South Bay mouth, the Fishing Islands, Douglas Point, and Sarnia. 

In all, seven state, federal, tribal, and provincial partner agencies participated in this study.  In 2004 and 2005 combined, study partners tagged and released over 21,000 lake whitefish in Lake Huron.  The Service tagged 3,021 lake whitefish in 2004 and 2005 combined.  To date, over 620 tagged lake whitefish have been harvested and reported by Lake Huron fishers.

In 2006, Service staff successfully Floy tagged and released 1,533 lake whitefish near Middle Island.  Michigan DNR staff tagged approximately 1,500 lake whitefish in Thunder Bay in November, 2006. Tagged fish were measured for length, checked for lamprey wounds, sexed, assessed for maturity, scale sampled for ageing purposes, fin clipped, and released. A random subset of fish were also detained shortly prior to release to measure short term tag retention and handling mortality. Approximately 200 fish were lethally sampled and processed as well.

Data from this study will be entered into a common database maintained by the Alpena FRO.  Combined study data, including 2006 tagging, will be distributed to study partners early in 2007.