Each year, the terms of the 2000 Consent Decree require the modeling subcommittee of the Technical Fisheries Committee to generate recommended safe harvest limits for the lake trout fisheries in the 1836 treaty waters of Lakes Superior, Michigan and Huron.  

John Netto, Green Bay Fisheries Resource Office, worked with Jory Jonas and Shawn Sitar, Michigan Department of Natural Resources,  to update the Statistical Catch at Age assessment models for the Michigan waters of Lakes Michigan and Superior. 

Each model is designed to represent a region in each lake, consisting of one or more management units.  Four separate assessment models are used in Lake Michigan and three in Lake Superior.  Jonas also calculated estimates of sea lamprey induced mortality on lake trout for Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior.

The preliminary results from this year's assessments were presented at the MSC meeting, March 14-16, in Roscommon, Mich.  At this meeting, the modelers presented what changes they made to the models, described any additional analyses and presented the current year's preliminary results. 

The committee, which consists of state, tribal and federal representatives, reviews the methods, results, and evaluations of the models before recommending lake trout harvest limits for tribal and recreational fishing in 1836 Treaty waters of the Great Lakes.