The St. Marys River Fishery Task Group (SMRFTG) met, May 15, in Brimley, Michigan.  Agenda items included the Lake Superior State University (LSSU) fish and wildlife beneficial use impairment (BUI) delisting criteria project, a review of preliminary analysis of the 2006 fish community assessment data, and review of the annual fall walleye recruitment electrofishing data.  The meeting was hosted by Joshua Parish of the Bay Mills Indian Community.

Greg Zimmerman (LSSU) provided an overview of a delisting criteria project that has received Michigan DEQ funding and was seeking volunteers from the group to sit on the Technical Committee they will be assembling.  This committee would review existing historical fish and wildlife population and habitat information and formulate restoration projects.  The information generated by the Technical Committee will be taken to Stakeholders in the fall.

Dave Fielder, MDNR, provided a preliminary analysis of the riverwide fish community assessment that was conducted by the SMRFTG in August 2006.  He provided a breakdown of the trends and abundance of major sport species including walleye, yellow perch, lake herring, smallmouth bass, and northern pike.  The information will be presented to the Lake Huron Technical Committee at their summer meeting in July and a final report will be written by the task group that will be published on the Great Lakes Fishery Commission's web site.  For the 2002 report, Population Dynamics of the St. Marys River Fish Community 1975-2002, view the Publications and Products link on the Lake Huron committee's page of the Commission's website -  http://www.glfc.org/lakecom/lhc/lhchome.php#pub.

Greg Wright, CORA, provided a data summary of the annual fall walleye recruitment electrofishing survey. He found that the mean benchmark CPE of walleye was 6.7 fish/hour electrofishing.  The data also indicated that stocked hatchery fish comprise approximately 1/3 of walleye captured from the river.  There was some discussion regarding the minimal incorporation of this information into the Walleye Stocking and Evaluation plan that is currently being reviewed by the Lake Huron Committee.

Creel clerks will be working a number of areas of the river this summer to gather harvest data.  The MDNR will have a clerk on the lower reaches of the river and OMNR will have two clerks on the river, one surveying the rainbow trout fishery in the lower rapids and one surveying Lake George and the St. Joseph Channel.  They will also be conducting a creel survey of the lake herring fishery near St. Joseph Island.