Indian Tribal Authority, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Say Biology is Changing in Lake Michigan

The vice chair of an Indian tribal authority that decided to shut down commercial tribal fishing early this year says the decision was not an easy one. And Tom Schomin, of the Chippewa Ottawa Resource Authority or CORA, knows it will hit some fishing families hard.

Schomin says fishermen hit their quota for the year, which prompted CORA to close fishing season two weeks early.

But there’s something bigger in the works, a biological shift on Lake Michigan, where whitefish are struggling and lake trout are thriving.
Schomin says it’s getting to the point that fisherman can’t avoid catching nets full of lake trout.

Mark Holey with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says they’re following a restocking program carved out between the fish and wildlife service, CORA and the state in 2000. The program runs through 2019.

Schomin says they want to sit down with the feds and the state to revisit it.

He adds the early shutdown and decline in whitefish will likely cause the price of whitefish to go up.

CORA oversees five tribal bands in northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula.